


second go

by Elendraug



Series: second go [5]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: 69 (Sex Position), Aftercare, Alien Sex Toys, Artificial Nookworms, Bathing/Washing, Begging, Bulges and Nooks, Canon Compliant, Communication, Dirty Talk, Edging, Frottage, Gillplay, Illustrated, Intercrural Sex, Intimacy, M/M, Multiple Orgasms, Mutual Masturbation, Nook Eating, Nookworms, Oral Sex, Overstimulation, Psionic Sex, Psionics, Psychic Abilities, Quadrant Blurring, Sex Toys, Showers, Wet & Messy, Xeno
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-11
Updated: 2019-03-11
Packaged: 2019-11-13 16:42:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18035324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elendraug/pseuds/Elendraug
Summary: how come you love me when I am ugly? guess I can only hopehow can you save me when I am angry? reasons I'll never know





	second go

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is brought to you by Bell's Two Hearted Ale, Kraken rum, and the first bottle of mead I've ever been able to buy.
> 
> Special thanks to everyone who supported me while I was writing this, and to [Mare](http://mare-erythraeum.tumblr.com) for the beautiful illustrations. The Alternian text is from [TrollType/Cyanide](https://trolltype.mspa.sudrien.net/).
> 
> Shout-out to [SybLaTortue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SybLaTortue) for maybe obvious ~~nookworm-related~~ reasons, ahahaha. Also, here is your warning that this fic does not shy away from the reality of cleaning up after sex.
> 
> Please check out lights' music because it's great and was the inspiration behind this entire series, and this song is the track that kicked it all off back in 2011. I'm glad to have finally explored these ideas, and I think it took me eight years to get here.
> 
> Happy Eridan day.
> 
> * * *

_give me a[second go](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPLRkyGU3cM)_  
_don’t let me go alone_  
_you saw me at the worst_  
_you caught me falling first_  
_all I wanted to know_  


“Do you think you can ever get too used to pailing somebody?”

Sollux looks up from _Shell Scripting for Shitbags_ and shrugs. “I guess, but is that a bad thing? To have somebody you want to do all the time?”

Eridan slides his hands into his pockets. “Well, no.”

“You know, for someone who complained incessantly about this?” Smiling, Sollux sits up on the couch from where he’d been backed against the armrest, and reaches down to grab his mug from the floor. “You sure are spoiled to whine about getting laid _too_ much.”

Eridan shifts his weight to one side, standing in front of the couch. “It’s not that.”

Sollux lifts the mug to his mouth and sips his now-tepid chamomile. “Then what?”

“It’s that I really like you.” He shifts to the other foot. “And I don’t want to get bored by us.”

Sollux speaks against the ceramic. “Oh.”

“What I mean is, I’m _not_ bored by you, and I don’t want to be.”

“ _I’m_ a lot less bored now that I’ve got real books that don’t make my eyes slide off the page before I can read the words.”

“There is that.”

Sollux sets his tea back on the floor and folds his legs under himself to make room for Eridan. Eridan settles in beside him to rest his head against his shoulder, legs drawn up on the couch to knock denim against Sollux’s bare knee.

Without even looking, Sollux folds up the book telekinetically and shelves it across the room. His eyes are on Eridan: on the delicate gold chain and angular amethyst draped over his collarbone in lieu of any jewelry on his fingers, on the dropped armholes of his black tank that give view to his gills, on the tight fit of his grey jeans.

“Dude, are you wearing my pants?”

“Yeah, barely.” Eridan rolls his eyes. “Almost fuckin’ impossible to put on. You have no ass.”

Sollux reaches over to slide his hand up Eridan’s thigh. “You’ll just have to have enough ass for both of us.”

“I think I already did, when that was relevant.” Eridan shifts so that his knees are resting against Sollux’s leg. “Don’t say I never did nothin’ for this relationship.”

Sollux has long since learned not to worry about the discrete math involved in Eridan’s triple negatives. “See, there you go. You’re actively engaged with whatever self-actualization comes from that. Nicely done.”

Eridan snorts. Sollux feels it against his neck.

“So what is all this?” Eridan asks, running a hand over Sollux’s chest, over the screenprint of his graphic tee. “What’s the green thing down there?”

“This is a vintage Game Grub magazine promotional t-shirt that you could only get for renewing your subscription by mail.”

Eridan frowns and lifts his head. “By _mail_.”

“Yeah.”

“But there’s no...”

Sollux grins at him. “Well, that’s why nobody got the shirt, but now there’s nothing to stop me from living the dream and wearing the merch I’ve always coveted.”

Eridan laughs. “Okay, that doesn’t account for your [boxers](https://k.nickpic.host/BP0fYf.jpg).”

“That’s a creeper.”

“I agree.”

“Fuck you.” Sollux turns his head to kiss Eridan’s cheek. “It’s from an Earth game where you dig holes and punch trees.”

“ _What?_ ”

“Did I stutter?”

“And you have socks to match.”

“Eheheh, yeah.”

“You know what the worst part of all this is?” Eridan drops his head back to Sollux’s shoulder and squeezes his waist. “I’m still going to fuck you.”

“ _Fuck_ yeah.”

Sollux breathes easily with Eridan’s arm across him, and waits for him to say something in response. When nothing further comes, he lets out a slow exhale and tilts his head back on the couch, eyes closed, settling completely into embracing the quiet moment. He lifts his right hand to rest it on Eridan’s forearm as he holds him.

Eridan sighs, and his breath on Sollux’s throat sends warmth curling through him. 

Sollux trails his claws lightly over Eridan’s arm. “You okay?”

“Just overthinkin’ things.”

He leans his cheek against Eridan’s head. “You wanna glub about feelings?”

“Yeah, actually.”

“You know, I think it’s okay to be bored sometimes,” Sollux says, speaking into Eridan’s hair. “It means nothing terrible is happening.”

“I was thinking more about, like..." He sighs again, and Sollux catches the wave of frustration. “You know how I am. I get obsessed with people.”

“Mm.”

“And no one I’ve ever wanted has ever wanted me back, until now. So I don’t have a lot to go off, and I’m worried about what happens when the shine wears off or something.”

Instead of saying anything, Sollux curves his hand around Eridan’s forearm and steadily rubs his thumb into the muscle tissue. 

“This isn’t me sayin’ I’m gonna go wanderin’ off or anythin’ like that,” Eridan adds, in a rush. “Which I can’t even do, even if I wanted to, ‘cause out here you need a tour guide to go anywhere.”

“You know what, though?”

“What?”

“It would be okay with me even if you did,” Sollux says, sliding his fingers further up Eridan’s arm to settle on his bare shoulder. “Because I know that you’d come back.”

“You really trust me like that?”

“Yeah, I do.” He resumes his efforts on Eridan’s upper arm, pressing circles with the pad of his thumb. “And I think it’s okay to be a little bored with another person, even if you like them, as long as you talk about it.”

“Glub aboat it.”

Sollux laughs. “Yeah.”

“I don’t want to get bored of you, though.” Eridan fishes for Sollux’s left hand and holds it in his hands, over his own knees. “I like being here with you. Why’s it gotta sound like it’s inevitable?”

“Inevita-bubble.”

Eridan smiles.

“Maybe not inevitable, but statistically likely.” Sollux trails his fingertips back down along Eridan’s arm, then lets his right arm fall to his lap. “Everything’s gonna have ups and downs. Like a sine wave or something _hashtag deep_ like that. Boom and bust cycles are how universes are formed.”

“That’s real hashtag deep.”

“Thanks.”

“I’m tryin’ so hard not to put you on a pedestal.” Eridan spins the gold band around Sollux’s ring finger. “I know nothin’ good is gonna come of that.”

“Ultimately, I am just some guy.” Sollux watches Eridan’s fingers as he worries the ring. “And so are you.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Since we’re already sort of on this topic,” Sollux starts, keeping his hand still on Eridan’s knee, “I want you to know that even though I’m the first person you’ve gotten to be with, I’m not going to... I’m not saying I have to be the only one, ever.” 

Eridan’s fins flick and he keeps staring at Sollux’s hand. “Hm?”

“I’m saying... I think it’d be pretty shitty to demand sexual exclusivity from you, in an infinite afterlife.” He runs his thumb lightly over Eridan’s kneecap, without disrupting Eridan’s efforts. “I support you having lots of orgasms, in general, and I just hope that a significant number of them are with me.”

“That’s upright magnanimous of you.” Eridan lets go of Sollux’s hand only long enough to gently flip it over and lace their fingers together. “I dunno how many ghosts are gonna want to put up with my variety of mess.” 

“You never know about that,” Sollux says, smiling at him. “You didn’t think I would, right?”

“Well.”

“Who knows? Maybe there’s somebody else out there in the infinite reaches of paradox space who’s stoked about banging you, who you’d also want to fuck.” Sollux shrugs, lightly so Eridan is not unduly jostled. “That’s fine with me. We can talk about it.”

Eridan squeezes his hand.

“I just want you to come back.” Sollux squeezes his hand in return. “Or maybe bring them here, depending on who it is.”

The laughter he’d expected does not come, and Sollux lifts his right hand to lay it on top of Eridan’s, on top of his own. There’s a delay, a hesitance during which Eridan resumes hiding his face against the collar of Sollux’s t-shirt, before he gives in and brings his left hand over Sollux’s to complete the stack.

_There’s_ the laughter.

Eridan kisses Sollux’s neck. “Hey, so.”

“Yeah?”

“Can I go down on you?”

“You’re not sick of sniffing my nook?”

“You’d be surprised how readily I’ve accepted my lot in life as a bona fide nooksniffer.”

“And a bona fide bulgelicker.” Sollux disentangles himself and sits sideways on the couch, leaning his head on the back of it, his horns digging only slightly into the worn upholstery. He faces Eridan, who’s mirrored his posture, and brings his hand up to trace his fingertips over the gold chain as it curves around Eridan’s neck and down to his collarbone. “You look nice.”

“I was aiming for ‘hot’.” Eridan’s glasses are elsewhere. His irises match the stones at his throat, and for all the alleged energy between them, they utterly fail to dispel the intoxication of his aesthetic. “Did I pull that off?”

“Yeah.” Sollux follows the chain further down to cross the tips of his claws over the amethyst, over Eridan’s sternum. “I’m in my own hive but I suddenly feel underdressed for the occasion.”

“Well, don’t, because you look hot just like that, and it’s less to have to remove.”

Sollux snickers. “This is practically gamer lingerie.”

Eridan prods him at his solar plexus, over the Game Grub logo. “You’re very on-brand.” 

Sollux pokes him back, just below the jewelry. “You gonna _sea_ -duce me, or what?”

“I oughta cut the carp, huh?” Eridan pokes the gigantic pixel of the creeper’s eye as it folds its way over Sollux’s hip. “Dive right in and do somefin sexy?”

“Yeah.” Sollux laughs, giddy with their faces so close, with the obvious anticipation. “I’ll start.” 

He slips his hand into the easy access granted by Eridan’s tank top, and brushes his fingers over gills and grubscar alike. 

Eridan sucks in a breath through his teeth.

Sollux does it again.

“Who’s supposed to be seducing who?” Eridan asks, reaching over to steady a hand on Sollux’s knee.

“Whom,” Sollux says, as he leans in closer and brings his lips against Eridan’s.

Eridan kisses him back, still gradually getting accustomed to how comfortable it is to indulge in this, how simple to be welcomed within his personal space. He runs his hand up Sollux’s thigh to grab his ass—lacking or not—and palms the fabric along with his pelvis. 

Sollux shifts to hook his leg over Eridan’s hip, over his own jeans fitting differently on someone else’s frame. That Eridan’s wearing his pants when he’s not wearing any, and vice versa regarding their respective states of ring-wearing, are details that are not lost on him.

“Check it out,” he starts, breath hot at the corner of Eridan’s mouth. “You’re getting into my pants twice in a row.”

Instead of acknowledging the joke, Eridan brings his hand down between them to cup over Sollux’s crotch through the boxers. “Now who’s being ineff-fish-cient?”

Sollux’s breath catches in his throat, and he pushes his hips down against Eridan’s hand.

Eridan keeps the heel of his palm pressing back against him, even as Sollux settles his weight further on Eridan's thigh. He fingers the lips of his nook through his boxers, seeking the direct path from his bone sheath to the wetness beginning to seep through the fabric at the center.

Sollux runs his hand over Eridan’s ribcage and finds the faint remainder of grub scarring buried between his secondary gills. His touching is gentle but consistent, teasing the edges of everything with expert practice; it’s enough to avoid any discomfort.

Eridan keeps his hand steady as Sollux rocks his hips down. Sollux’s teeth catch his lip, his forked tongue following afterward, his exhalations hot against their residual saliva as he pulls back to speak.

“I’m trying to conch-tain myself,” he says, unable to stop himself from grinning, “but this _eels_ reel-y good.”

Eridan kisses him quickly. “Whale done.”

Entertained, Sollux allows himself to laugh. “You want me to get _wweh-t_ for you?”

“Okay, you’re entirely too articulate,” Eridan faux-scolds. 

Sollux closes his eyes halfway and runs his hand down to Eridan’s hip, his thumb digging into his third grubscar. “You love it.”

“You got me.”

Sollux squeezes his hip, eager to get a handful of him. “I do.”

Eridan keeps his fingers flexing, all four of them together as Sollux begins moving more insistently, with his thumb braced against the tendon between his thigh and crotch. Sollux rubs himself on his hand, pushing Eridan’s knuckles into his own thigh, and when their imagined sense of inertia becomes too much, Sollux gives in to gravity and eases himself down on top of him. Eridan’s head rests against the cushion, his horns prod against the arm of the couch, but he tilts his chin up to receive Sollux’s continuous kissing.

“Fuck,” Sollux breathes, his thighs tight around Eridan’s, grinding himself against the solid muscle of Eridan’s leg now that his hands have relocated to Sollux’s ass. 

“That’s the idea,” Eridan says, face flushed violet, his necklace displaced past his shoulder. 

Sollux ducks his head to Eridan’s neck and kisses beneath his jawline, up to catch the delicate cartilage of his facial fin between his lips, lower to taste the gold chain crossing his gills. Eridan lifts his thigh to nudge more firmly between Sollux’s legs, and Sollux braces his elbows against the couch cushion to support himself as he tangles his fingers in the voluminous waves of Eridan’s hair. 

“Skipping the lipstick today?” Sollux remarks, with a return to kissing Eridan’s mouth.

“Didn’t think you’d want it on your junk.”

“I dunno, man. I feel like I could be into it.” Sollux kisses the corner of his mouth. “It just depends. Black stripes look pretty good on yellow, right?” 

Eridan tilts his head to the side to kiss him fully. “You’re biased.”

“Bee-assed.”

Eridan digs his fingers into his ass through the boxers and encourages it as Sollux rolls his hips in response. “Shore enough.”

Sollux holds his weight on his elbows and shifts his hips, indulging himself by nudging his nook against Eridan’s leg, with the fabric of his boxers smoothing the friction of the denim that clings tightly to Eridan’s thigh. “ _God_ , I want you.”

Eridan thinks back to the roof, of earlier kisses and confessions, and smiles up at him. “I’m right here.”

Sollux threads his fingers into Eridan’s hair at his temples, behind his fins, and kisses him slowly. Eridan kisses him in return, and brings his hands up along his spine, tugging the shirt up, slightly away from his waist to feel the vertebrae at the small of his back.

With Sollux exhaling hot moisture onto his throat, Eridan’s gills flare open in response, and he breathes in Sollux’s sighing through two venues, surrounded by the scent of him.

When Sollux settles his head onto Eridan’s shoulder, shallowly rutting his hips against him, Eridan presses a kiss to one of his horns and speaks against his scalp.

“How’s that?” he asks, teeth against his horn bed. “You ready to have your nook eaten now?” 

“ _Hell_ fucking yes.”

Eridan returns his hands to Sollux’s ass and tugs at his waistband. “Take off your pants, Solluxander.”

“That’s not my name, Eridaniel.” Sollux lifts himself up enough to yank his underwear down, removing it from one leg at a time and tossing it to the floor.

Eridan eyes the gold fluid sticking to the fabric, wadded up unceremoniously next to the dregs of the chamomile, and relocates his fingers to slide between his nook lips. “Fuck, you did get wet for me.”

Sollux nods against his shoulder and thrusts against his hand. 

“Okay, if you want me to lick away the mess you made, you’ve gotta let me sit up.”

Sollux makes a reluctant noise. “Your fingers feel good.”

“They’re gonna feel way better when my tongue’s next to ‘em.”

Sollux whines next to his fin and thrusts down until Eridan’s hand is again trapped between Sollux’s nook and his own leg. If Sollux ruins the borrowed jeans, it’s his own doing.

“C’mon, stop being stubborn.” Eridan sits up and brings Sollux’s scant weight with him, regardless of the results, which involve yellow genetic material smearing into the grey denim. “Let me spoil you.”

“When you put it that way.” Sollux cooperates and kisses him only once more before settling back against the couch. He parts his legs for him easily, waiting with his breath and his heart in his throat as Eridan extracts himself from their entwinement and kneels on the floor in front of the couch. 

Eridan picks the discarded boxers back off the floor and hands them to Sollux. “Unless you wanna ruin that, too.”

“I can just reset it,” Sollux counters, although he takes the underwear and spreads it beneath himself where he sits, anyway.

“C’mere.”

“I may _very well_ come right here,” he says, adding a wavering emphasis to the consonants.

“I can make that happen.” Eridan looks up at him, bangs mussed, jewelry askew, as he parts Sollux’s thighs and moves his head in closer. He rests his chin on the couch. “I’ll get you off right here if you want.”

Sollux’s gut clenches, and his nook feels exposed in the air. “I might take you up on that.”

“Just say the word.”

Eridan keeps his hands on Sollux’s slender hips, thumbs at his grubscars on either side, and leans forward until his tongue touches to the wetness that’s gathered between his legs. A companionable silence fills the room, and as Eridan finds a languid rhythm, there’s nothing audible besides the soft, slick sounds of his tongue crossing Sollux’s nook.

Sollux lets out a shaky breath and leans his head back on the couch, pushing his hips towards Eridan, making himself more accessible. “Ohh, fuck.”

Even with his tongue out, Eridan’s mouth quirks in a smile, and he makes eye contact with Sollux as he licks him again.

Eridan’s tongue is slightly cool to the touch as he clears away Sollux’s slickness, lapping in broad, slow strokes over the entrance of his nook before switching to a more pointed flicking between his nook lips and up to his bone sheath. Sollux digs his claws into the couch cushion and watches as Eridan watches his every reaction, as his grey tongue slips between teasing him and satisfying him as he tastes his skin.

“You got so good at this,” Sollux sighs, his eyes half-lidded, his breath coming in shallower gasps the longer he receives this intense attention. 

Eridan pulls back to grin at him, his teeth very visible, his necklace shifting as he lifts himself to lean further over Sollux’s lap. He presses both thumbs in tight circles on Sollux’s grubscars, and lowers his head to hover his teeth over the muscle and what passes for fat on Sollux’s bony hip. 

“Practice makes perfect,” he says, biting lightly at him, the points of his teeth resting on his skin and staying utterly still as he licks at his grubscar. He kisses the spot when he’s done. “Just like precision shooting.”

“This is my favorite sort of target practice.” Sollux lifts his hips. “But you’re a bit off mark.”

“More like I bit my mark.”

“You’re missing the mark _and_ the point, which is that I want you to keep licking me.”

“Wow, you’re so _glubbing_ impatient.” Eridan kisses his hip again. “You ever heard of foreplay?”

“Yeah.” Sollux raises his hand to pet Eridan’s hair, and smooth his bangs away from his face. “My nook is for playing with.”

Eridan nuzzles against Sollux’s hip, breath falling against his inner thigh, and gratefully accepts the affection despite the toothless banter. 

“All right,” Eridan says, smiling against his skin. “Round two.”

He pulls back entirely, and pulls an awkward maneuver on the floor to lie flat on his back and heft Sollux’s borrowed jeans off, struggling to get them tugged down past his thighs.

“You stuck?” Sollux asks, amused.

“These are better on you than on me,” Eridan complains. He lifts his ass off the floor to get the effort started, then finally shoves them down to his knees, lowers himself back to the floor, and yanks them entirely off. “For fuck’s sake.”

Sollux eyes him appreciatively as he drops the jeans into a heap. Eridan’s underwear is solid black and tight to his hips, coming down slightly onto his thighs with criss-crossed ties that hold the garment to him on his sides, laced over his grey skin in a way that’s almost reminiscent of rigging.

“Is that a swimsuit?”

Eridan sits back up and avoids the question. “Is there functionally a difference?”

“I guess it’s more water resistant than most.”

“I thought they looked good,” Eridan explains, defensive. “And it was gonna keep me from ruining your pants, but you already did a great job of that.”

“They do look good,” Sollux assures him. “ _You_ look good.”

Eridan sits in front of the couch again and rests his arms on Sollux’s knees. “Thanks.” 

There’s a visual line drawn down from his fins to his gills to the strings on the swimsuit, and since he can’t reach with his hands, Sollux sends a telekinetic ripple along his line of sight. 

Eridan closes his eyes and basks in it.

Sollux runs his fingers through Eridan’s hair to part it every which way, and strokes along the graceful waves of his horns with the same motion. His psionic energy sends a double sensation through Eridan’s gills and the fading grubscars they hide, charted out to land one click within the confines of his ribs, into tissue inaccessible by his fingertips. 

There’s a hint of violet smeared where the edge of the swimsuit meets Eridan’s inner thigh, and Sollux lowers his psychic efforts to land at Eridan’s pelvic floor.

“Fuck.” Eridan shudders, and with no solid surface to reasonably seek additional stimulation for his own nook and bulge, he returns his attention to Sollux’s. He keeps his eyes closed and pushes past Sollux’s hands in his hair to resume licking between his nook lips, wet from his tongue, the saturation of the gold diluted with his tinted highblood saliva.

“Fuck yeah, Eridan.” Sollux keeps his hands on his horns and rubs at the base of them, encouraging him without restricting the movements of his head whatsoever. “You feel good.”

“You _taste_ good,” he murmurs, bringing his hands around to grasp Sollux’s thigh with his left, and rub over top his bone sheath with his right thumb. He licks up along his entrance, up until his tongue touches his thumb, and repeats the motion until he’s lost in it, lapping at him with all available focus, with the rest of his attention going to the familiar electric buzzing that has him increasingly wet in his own underwear.

Sollux pushes his hips towards Eridan’s tongue, eager for more, his thigh trembling in Eridan’s steady grip. The longer Eridan licks at his sheath, the closer he gets to slipping out, and the more fluid flows to lubricate Eridan’s efforts.

“God, you’re hot,” Sollux gushes, and Eridan feels it in the flutter of his fins, the heat that rises to his face. 

There’s a returning wave of echoed sensory feedback that settles like a haze around Sollux’s awareness, the assurance of genuine enthusiasm beyond what’s already readily apparent from Eridan’s body language. The pangs of desire directed at himself are heady to take in, but Sollux accepts it openly and rolls his hips up towards Eridan’s mouth, offering him what he wants and wanting what he’s offering. 

Sollux’s bulges begin to slide out, unsheathing slightly in search of the source of all this receptive wetness. Eridan runs his thumb along Sollux’s nook lips to slick genetic material up towards the first peek of his bulges and coat them further, teasing between them with what little length has made itself available.

Sollux loses finesse with the psionics and settles on a low-effort, high-reward vibration that sits at a spot at Eridan’s pubic bone, internally and impossibly at the base of his sheath. Eridan’s fins flick in response, and he flicks his thumb over the smooth softness of Sollux’s bulges before catching them carefully between his thumb and forefinger and rubbing them against each other.

“Just the tips, huh?” Sollux jokes, breathlessly, with a nostalgic lisp added for effect.

Eridan moans instead of laughing, and Sollux can feel it in his gut from the sound before he feels it from the urgency with which Eridan captures the tips of his bulges between his lips and starts sucking.

“Oh my god, Eridan,” he gasps, thighs shaking with the effort of holding himself open. He scoots closer, pushes his hips forward to chase the touch of Eridan’s tongue, and hooks his legs over Eridan’s shoulders, his socks skidding over the tank top as he presses his heels to his back. He keeps his hands on his horns, holding onto him for whatever balance it can provide, and feels a rush of wetness drip from his nook down past his ass to land on the boxers. “ _Suck me,_ please, Eridan—”

The gravitas of his gratitude, of Sollux’s shuddering as he says his name, is as viscerally satisfying to Eridan as the slick, smooth writhing of Sollux’s bulges against his lips and tongue. He suckles on him, lapping quickly at his bulge tips with his mouth pressed to his sheath, to encourage them to stay at the position they’re at, to allow him to lick exclusively at the densest concentration of nerve endings. With his left hand relocated to dig his thumb again into the grubscar at Sollux’s hip, his arm under and around his thigh, Eridan uses his right thumb to stroke over and between the lips of his nook, sliding his wetness around until there’s no stopping it from running down between his legs to soak into his boxers. 

“Lick me,” Sollux begs, eyes shut, struggling for air and to maintain the vibrations he’s providing for Eridan’s reciprocal enjoyment. “I’m so close, just like that, _just_ like that.”

Eridan raises his knuckles to nudge between his nook lips, pressing against him to provide something to grind against, and ups the suction around his bulge tips while speeding up the pointed lapping of his tongue.

Sollux shivers, his toes curling in his socks, heels braced against Eridan’s back. He tips his head back, sinking against the couch and horns catching against it, gasping out the same instructions. “ _Just_ like that, Eridan, I’m gonna come, you’re gonna make me come—”

Eridan keeps his wrist moving to shallowly fuck between Sollux’s nook lips, gold coating his knuckles as he pleasures him. He moves his mouth with increasingly filthy, wet sounds as he sucks around his bulges, rolling the tips of them around on his tongue and holding them between his lips. The pressure of his thumb at his hip is the sole point keeping Sollux grounded, and Sollux focuses on the hint of a claw on his skin as his stomach starts to go taut and everything starts cresting.

“Stop, stop, stop.” The psionics cut out abruptly, and Sollux pets at Eridan’s face as he pulls back and away from the sweetness of his mouth. His breathing is ragged, his legs remain draped over Eridan’s shoulders, and every muscle in his body seems tight.

Eridan stares very up close as Sollux’s bulges continue to twist around themselves with whatever had unsheathed, and the visibly shiny wetness leaking from his nook is almost unbearable to stay away from.

He rests his chin on Sollux’s knee and streaks his skin with gold that dribbled down from his lips.

“You okay?” he asks.

“I’m okay,” Sollux confirms, winded and noticeably struggling to back himself away from the edge. “Okay, so, first of all? Holy shit, I could never get bored of you, or of _that_.”

Eridan looks up at him from the view from his thigh, and idly flexes his PC muscles to give himself some sort of relief. “Professional nooksniffer.”

Sollux rubs at his eyes, breathing hard and laughing. “You have a fucking doctorate in nookdiving, dude. Holy fuck.”

Eridan kisses his thigh. “Gotta get a frame for that diploma.”

“Secondly,” Sollux says, his voice catching, “come here?”

Eridan does so, and pulls himself up to join Sollux on the couch, where within an instant Sollux is lying back across the cushions and tugging at Eridan’s arms, urging him closer. Eridan lies down on top of him and kisses him, shards of amethyst hanging down from around his neck to brush against Sollux’s collarbone through his shirt, his lips wet with Sollux’s near-orgasm, letting Sollux taste himself on Eridan’s tongue.

“Fuck, dude.” Sollux takes his bottom lip lightly between his teeth and gives him another breathy laugh. “I can actually feel my nook throbbing, that’s how fucking bad I want you.”

“Got big plans for all the buildup?” Eridan asks, kissing his jawline, smelling the sweat in his hair.

“Yeah. You know me; I’m gonna min-max everything.” Sollux at last captures enough air in his lungs to calm down, if only slightly. He runs his hands down Eridan’s back. “So here’s my suggestion, if you want to keep stuff from getting boring. This is something I’ve always wanted to try.”

Eridan holds the shell of his ear between his teeth, then releases it to speak. “What’d you have in mind?”

“Final destination, three bulges, no nooks.” He holds up his hand in a peace sign. “Two items.”

Eridan lifts his head to look at him quizzically. “What?”

“Nothing in our nooks except something to keep us from spilling everywhere.” Sollux’s bulges unsheathe themselves further and curl into a wet knot between their bodies, writhing against the smooth, stretch fabric of Eridan’s swim gear, where Eridan’s own half-unsheathed bulge is not well hidden. Sollux’s face is already flushed from exertion, but even with that much as a baseline, he still seems flustered to describe it. “We just get off from our bulges touching, no matter how long it takes.”

“Hot,” Eridan says, simply. “We can do that.”

“Also, I want to eat your nook, too.”

“Feeling inspired?”

Sollux nods, running his fingers up through Eridan’s hair at the back of his head. “Yeah, a little.”

Eridan cups Sollux’s face in his right hand and brushes his thumb over his cheekbone, despite the residual, drying stickiness. 

“Sol,” he starts, still seeking confirmation when he needs it. “Sollux, do you hate me?”

Sollux moves his left hand to cover Eridan’s and clutch it against his face, nuzzling into his palm. The gold ring is warm, equalized with Sollux’s body temperature, warding against the vicious self-doubt that lingers at the deepest parts of Eridan’s thoughts and washes up when he wants it least, that Sollux is now as familiar with soothing as his own frustrations that he fights to keep at bay. 

“Not especially, not anymore.” He shakes his head, keeping Eridan’s hand close to his cheek. “Only in the ways you want me to.”

Eridan accepts this and kisses his hand, at the delicate edge of his wrist, and then moves back to kissing his lips, just as lightly before he brings their foreheads together. Sollux feels conflicted cues radiating off him, and moves his hand to draw a fingertip along the outer edge of his fin.

“My head keeps hurting,” Eridan says. “I don’t know how you dealt with this.”

“I didn’t, really.” Sollux tilts his chin up to kiss him. “Once everyone who was going to die had died, the headaches stopped.”

He’s deliberately vague and they both know it.

“But I think I know why you’re going through this,” he continues, keeping his hands moving to play with Eridan’s hair as he speaks, in an attempt to distract him from the pain. “I was afraid to say anything because I thought I might be hearing the voices of the doomed again, and I didn’t want to scare you, but I think you’ve got this... this drip, this slow leak siphoning off your concentration.”

Eridan’s eyebrows react in various ways to the myriad statements as Sollux meanders through them. “If I got anything leaking half as much as your nook, I’m in trouble.”

Sollux laughs and scratches lightly at the back of Eridan’s head. “But seriously.”

“Wait, what are you saying?”

“I’m saying, I think you’re psychic now, man.”

Eridan sits up, still straddling Sollux, and furrows his brow. “What.”

“I think maybe after being part of me, it unlocked some potential you had. If you can broadcast your emotional state, that’s not a thing I could ever do.”

“What about you?” Eridan asks, seeking any additional information that would thread the context together. “What about all the stuff you make?”

“If I had to guess, I’d say that’s less about me as a troll and more about me being here in this space.” Sollux reaches for Eridan’s hip, and idly tangles his fingers with the ties dangling on Eridan’s left thigh. “Like you and your wands have been.”

There’s a pause, and before Sollux can fidget his way through undoing Eridan’s swimsuit, Eridan turns to glance over his shoulder. “Can I lift stuff now?”

“I don’t know. Can you?” Sollux lets his hand rest on Eridan’s knee. “Try it.”

With his right arm outstretched, Eridan takes a deep breath and directs his gaze to the ceramic mug on the floor. Sollux watches him focus on it, with his jaw set, his chest rising and falling with deliberate, even inhalations and exhalations, in a wide-eyed act of meditation. There’s a hint of his teeth on his lip, the sea dweller sawtooth repetition of his incisors, and an even fainter hint of Sollux’s slurry staining his skin. His shoulder blades move beneath his tank as he adjusts his posture and flexes his fingers, spine straightened, all previous flailing from his bulge stilled as he flings himself into this task. 

Sollux cranes his neck to watch the mug, waiting for a miracle, or magic, or something else entirely.

Their whole world waits at his fingertips, with an absolute absence of motion that borders on atmospheric. Eridan breathes in, and Sollux’s lungs mimic his as if Eridan were a metronome.

Without warning, Eridan twists around and leans off the couch, straining to reach the mug. He catches it by the handle and brings it up, then downs the rest of the lukewarm chamomile in one swig.

“See?” he says, facing Sollux again and tipping the mug back and forth with the movements of his wrist. “I can lift stuff just fine.”

Sollux rolls his eyes but smiles up at him anyway. “Very impressive.”

“All right, so, that didn’t work, obviously.” He sets the mug back down on the floor, closer to where they’re seated. “So, what, you’ve been reading my thoughts this whole time? Is that what I’m supposed to take away from his steaming hot dump of revelations?”

“No, dude.” Sollux runs his claws lightly over Eridan’s leg. “It’s more like... it’s this impression I get of whatever you’re feeling. Some moments are stronger than others. It’s almost like... I almost feel stupid using the word, but it’s an _aura_ , I guess, that you’re giving off.”

“An aura.”

“Yeah.” He taps his fingers on Eridan’s leg. “I’m not going in anywhere. It’s what you’re sending out.”

“So my think pan is now a gigantic mood ring.” Eridan scoffs. “What kind of fucking powers are _those_?”

Sollux shrugs. “I can sometimes feel it when you come.”

Eridan’s fins flick in several different ways. “You can?”

“Not always.” He shrugs again, helplessly. “It’s hot when it happens.”

Eridan makes a face. “Could you tell when all of our friends were—”

“Man, what the hell. No.” Sollux shakes his head. “I mean, not individually.”

“ _What_.”

“No, it was this just constant overlapping noise. Indiscriminate voices. Like being stuck listening to every asshole shoving their way through a crowded train station, forever.” Sollux makes a face, too. “Or at least until all that shit went down and it suddenly stopped.”

Eridan’s teeth are on his lip again as he stares at the far end of the room. The roiling miasma is metaphysically palpable. After a minute of quiet he looks back down to Sollux. “So how do I turn it off?”

“I have no fucking idea.” Sollux runs his hand up Eridan’s side, finding his gills again through the opening in the tank top. “Maybe it’s something that only violet bloods have.”

“Whatever.” Eridan runs a hand through his own hair to smooth it back and temporarily tame a few of the flyaways. “I’ll figure it out later.”

“I should’ve told you sooner.” Sollux brushes his thumb over the hem of the swimsuit. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’m glad you waited until you could kind of tell what it was that was happening and not when we would’ve just freaked our shit out for no reason.”

“I feel like if you could practice with it, your headaches might stop. Like if you fixed a leaky faucet and the culling notices for resource mismanagement stopped showing up on your doorstep.”

“The—?”

“Never mind.” Sollux resumes his attempts to idly undo the strings that are lacing Eridan’s underwear in place at his hip. “If your bulge hasn’t moved off-planet by now, you wanna go back to fucking?”

Eridan grins at him, and the energy he’s giving off vastly improves in tone. “Yeah. That’s an idea I can get behind.”

Sollux grins back. “You can get behind _me_ if you want.”

“That’s another good idea.”

“Two bright ideas in a row from a handsome genius. Who’d’ve thought?”

“And so humble.” Eridan lowers himself back down and kisses Sollux slowly. “When are we moving to your respiteblock?”

“Now-ish sounds probably wise.”

“Then let’s do that, wise guy.”

“After you get your ample Ampora ass off me, I will do that.”

Eridan lifts his eyebrows suggestively. “As if my ass isn’t right where you want it.”

Sollux curves his hand around to grip Eridan’s ass. “In theory, yeah, but let’s keep our eyes on the fucking prize here.”

“The _fucking_ prize.”

“Oh my god, dude, just stand up.” Sollux laughs. “You’re as bad as I am.”

Eridan does stand, and narrowly avoids tripping over the discarded jeans. He offers Sollux a hand. “Glad to see we’re rubbing off on each other.”

“I sure fucking hope we’re gonna rub off on each other, ASAP.” Sollux takes his hand and stands pantsless beside him, and glances back to telekinetically move his boxers onto the floor, as an afterthought. In another eyeblink, the gold stains on the couch cushion are gone.

Eridan keeps holding his hand as they walk towards Sollux’s respiteblock, which he’s increasingly thinking of as being _their_ respiteblock.

“You wanna make this extra kinky and non-boring?” Sollux asks, and from the shit-eating lilt to his voice, Eridan can immediately tell it’s going to involve exactly what he’d expect.

“Of course. What kind of a question even is that?”

“So I’m thinking, we brew some more tea to set the mood, and then start a scintillating roleplay scenario.” He squeezes Eridan’s hand and manages to contain his laughter until he can finish the thought. “Maybe some purr-l grey this time.”

“Wait, like the cat or like the shellfish?”

“I don’t know, man. You pick your favorite.”

“Well, say no more. Let’s begin.” Eridan steps through the doorway first, and turns around to face Sollux, still keeping their fingers together. “I put on my robe and wizard hat.”

Sollux beams at him. “I love that you actually fucking have a wizard hat.”

Eridan reaches for Sollux’s other hand, too, and holds both. “You want me to go put it on?”

“Probably not.” Sollux shakes his head, and lets go of Eridan’s hands to loop his arms around his shoulders. “I’m already so aroused, I don’t know if I could handle it.”

The sudden slick slide of Sollux’s bulges against Eridan’s thigh corroborates this statement, and Eridan puts his hands on the bare skin of Sollux’s hips to pull him closer into his physical space.

“So where are we doing this?” Eridan asks, idly petting at the small of Sollux’s back, beneath the hem of his t-shirt. “Your desk?”

“Oh, yeah, no. Hold on.” 

With the beehouse mainframes gone, there’s sufficient space in his block to work with new furniture. Sollux lifts one hand away from Eridan’s shoulder and gestures in the air as if he’s drawing a set of blinds, and a plain mattress and foundation occupy a space once crossed with wires that, while not explicitly for the purpose, functioned well enough to trip anyone trying to walk through them. Floating lost some of its novelty once it became necessary to navigate the room. Sollux gestures again, a conductive movement, and a quadranted set of sheets appears on the bed. With a third motion, he spreads his fingers wide apart and both objects transform to provide a scaled up, roomier surface.

“Look what I found in the asset library,” Sollux announces, returning his hand to rest on Eridan’s shoulder again. “Look at this clusterfuck pattern. Seemed fitting.”

Eridan turns his head to look. “Haven’t we seen these before somewhere?”

“I am _sure_ I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Eridan purses his lips. “Seems a bit cheesy, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah, well. Nobody’s here to watch us and judge.” 

Sollux runs his fingers up along the gold chain until he finds the clasp, and uses both hands to unhook it. He carefully lifts the necklace away from Eridan’s collarbone and looks down between them to admire it. 

“Thanks for making that for me,” Eridan says, quietly, with no cause for raised voices when they’re standing so close.

“That was a good night.” Sollux glances back up at him. “I like making stuff for you. It’s fun.”

Eridan keeps his hands on Sollux’s hips and softly strokes his thumb over his grubscars. He feels Sollux’s bulges twitch against his thigh in response. “It’s like you’re our personal wardrobifier, but on empire-issue performance enhancers.” 

Sollux sticks his tongue out at him, briefly. “Plus you actually wear a lot of it, and I get the bonus of getting to look at you.” 

Eridan squeezes his waist. “Couldn’t’ve put it better myself.”

Sollux returns his attention to the necklace and slips his ring off his finger before threading it onto the chain and rehooking the clasp. He steps away from the embrace to set the combined jewelry on his desk, safe next to the restored sprite shades that Eridan’s continued wearing as his own eyewear.

Eridan watches him get momentarily distracted by an old issue of Game Grub magazine, and keeps his eyes on him as he reads the cover, as his fingers trace the headlines, as his shirt settles lower on his hips from where it’d ridden up, as his bulges twist slowly between his thighs.

Before Eridan can decide to step closer, Sollux turns around and nods towards the bed. “You wanna lie down?”

“Yeah.”

Sollux flops down heavily onto the mattress, arms wide out, like he’s floating on it. Eridan follows with a secondary _whumpf_ beside him that temporarily displaces Sollux upon impact.

“Why a human bed?” Eridan asks, sitting up and gathering the sheet in his arms to tug until Sollux rolls off onto the fitted sheet alone. “It’s been bog standard concupiscent platforms until now.”

Sollux holds up a finger and counts. “For one, they’re soft as fuck. Two, it was available to replicate.” He rolls back over to face Eridan. “And three, I like what the symbolism implies when we ultimately make a mess on this.”

“Okay, fair.” With one swift motion, Eridan holds the fabric in both fists and tosses the sheet up, catching air beneath it like a cape. He drapes it over his shoulders, and over his head as a hood. “Are you ready?”

Sollux settles onto his back and stares up at him, amused. “Ready to do what?”

“To behold my robes!”

By the time Eridan’s swooping in to cover him with the covers, Sollux has already been laughing since he sussed out where this was going, and he catches Eridan in his arms as soon as his weight settles on top of him. Eridan kisses him despite the sustained snickering, in a fond feedback loop, the sheet tented by his horns at the top and draped over them as a small if smothering canopy.

Eridan shifts over to lie at Sollux’s side, taking the sheet with him. He slips his hand between Sollux’s legs and lets his bulges twine around his wrist like a gold bracelet. With utmost care, he keeps his polished claw tips raised away from his skin, to press only the pads of his fingertips against the lips of his nook and tease between them. 

“Fuck, that’s nice.” Sollux reaches up to dislodge the sheet from Eridan’s head, one horn at a time, and lets it fall to drape over Eridan’s hip. “I am so the fuck into all this attention.”

“Good shit, right?” Eridan strokes his hand up along one of Sollux’s bulges, catching the slickness of it against his palm as he slides his hand across it several times, his thumb slightly increasing the pressure on the upswing and playing with the tip before repeating the gesture.

Sollux arches his back, with his hands pressed flat against the mattress for some semblance of support. “Very good shit. By all means, please continue.”

Eridan leans over him and brings their mouths together, his tongue on Sollux’s teeth for an instant before Sollux licks back with the forked tip of his tongue. He keeps his hand moving between Sollux’s thighs, and switches to his other bulge when it gets insistent against his wrist. Twin trails of yellow trace his skin at any given moment, like latticework, like the ties on his own thighs crossing black over his hips like his nails above Sollux’s nook.

“God,” Sollux gasps, lifting his head to keep his lips close to Eridan’s teeth. “God, you feel so good.”

Eridan pulls his hand away from his bulges with a wet slide and returns his attention to his nook, two fingers pressing at the spot just beneath where the two of them have unsheathed. Sollux lets out a breathy, urgent sound and raises his hips again, bulges twining around the taut muscle of Eridan’s forearm, passing over the existing slickness on his skin.

“Fuck, it would not take much,” Sollux sighs, rocking his hips towards him. “Oh fuck, Eridan, it would be so easy.”

“You’re so fuckin’ vocal.” Eridan lowers his mouth to Sollux’s throat, just below his jaw, and speaks near his ear. “It’s so fuckin’ hot.”

Sollux turns his head towards him, eyes closing, breath coming in short huffs. “You get me this hot.”

Eridan bites his neck and Sollux’s bulges tighten around his arm in the same instant.

“Don’t let me come yet,” Sollux insists, exhaling against Eridan’s hair and horns. “I still want to lick you.”

“And I wasn’t done sucking on you,” Eridan says, the words falling where his teeth were previously stationed.

“Thank fuck those things are not mutually exclusive.”

There’s a beat before Sollux slows his hips and Eridan lets his bulges fall away from his hand. He lifts his head and lifts his fingers to his mouth to make a show of clearing the genetic material away.

“Get on top of me,” Sollux says, his voice thick with urgency. “Please.”

Eridan sits up and straddles Sollux’s chest, hefted up on his knees, and brushes Sollux’s bangs away from his forehead. “See something you like?”

Sollux’s hands are on his hips in an instant, on instinct, and he unties the bow at the bottom edge of Eridan’s swimsuit, unlacing it as a sort of overkill, yanking at the cord until it dislodges entirely from the rest of the garment and falls simply as string to the sheets.

“I gotta tell you, Sol,” Eridan remarks, eyes following Sollux’s frantic fingers as he repeats the effort on the opposite side, “I think it’s not even an overstatement to say that you got it fuckin’ bad.”

“I want to eat your nook,” Sollux says, unashamed. “Sit on my fucking face already.”

“You got it.” 

Eridan helps him undo the last of the laces and tosses the swimwear to the side. His bulge is already unsheathed, wet with whatever violet hadn’t soaked into the stretch fabric, and it curls in the air a scant distance from Sollux’s lips. 

“You’re always wearing so much clothing.” Sollux pushes Eridan’s tank top up, revealing his grubscars at his hips. “Even when you’re practically naked you go grab extra _secret wizard_ robes to put on.”

“I am a mystery wrapped in an enigma, and the enigma is where you got the sheets.” Eridan puts his hand over Sollux’s and helps him slide the shirt up. “It’s hot to take it off, isn’t it? Isn’t it nicer to feel somebody up through their attire, Mr. Nerd Lingerie?” 

Sollux gives up on Eridan’s shirt and attends to his own, tugging until it’s stuck against his horns from the awkward angle. Eridan lowers himself to sit on Sollux’s chest and leaves a wet trail in his wake while he fusses with the t-shirt and helps Sollux tug it over his head and off completely. It joins the swimsuit on the bed, as a pleasant afterthought.

“I love watching you put this stuff on and I equally love watching you take it back off,” Sollux agrees. “Let me lick you before we both pail our pants too soon.”

“ _What_ pants?” Eridan asks, feigning incredulity.

“I’m... you know what I mean.” Flustered, Sollux runs his hands up Eridan’s thighs, where the swimsuit ties have left the slightest impression on his skin. “Weren’t you just bitching that I was too articulate?” 

Eridan grins at the flush across Sollux’s cheekbones, at his bangs sticking to his skin, at the desperation with which Sollux stares openly at Eridan’s bulge as it curls on his chest, just out of reach. “Yeah, I was.”

Sollux takes a series of shallow breaths and licks his lips before tilting his head back to expose his throat, to see Eridan’s face. He swallows. “Please let me touch you.”

“This almost makes me wanna make you wait.” Eridan brushes his thumb over Sollux’s cheek. “But don’t let anyone ever say I’m not merciful.”

“I’m gonna start occidentally kissing your bulge if this takes any longer.”

“Not a terrible option, either.” Eridan takes the hem of his tank top into his hands and tugs it slowly up his torso, gradually revealing his grubscars and his gills and all of the soft spaces that were paradoxically rejoined with no evidence of his evisceration. 

Sollux watches him, rapt, with his bulges writhing between his thighs, his pulse in his temples, his palms following along with the theatrical unveiling of the places he never tires of touching.

Eridan lifts the tank off himself and shakes his head, the waves of his hair going whichever way they deign to regardless of any effect of his undress.

When he looks down, Sollux is squirming, itching to inch closer, to have him and hold him.

“You were right,” he says, eyes flicking between Eridan’s abdomen and the arch of his eyebrows. “There’s a lot to be said about taking things off.”

“You can tell my nook all about it.” Eridan runs his fingers through Sollux’s hair one more time before reaching forward to grab a pillow and help him prop his head up. “It reads lips.”

Sollux gets comfortable against the pillow and watches appreciatively as Eridan rotates himself to kneel backwards over him, his shins at the sides of Sollux’s head.

He grips Eridan’s ass as soon as it’s within reach. “Thank sweet fucking Troll Jegus, for I was thirsty and you gave me drink.”

Eridan laughs and gets settled, resting his weight on one elbow beside Sollux’s hip, his fingertips tangling with his bulges. “The more human books you download, the more esoteric your come-ons are becoming, Sol.”

Sollux lifts his head and speaks breathily against Eridan’s nook. “You can come on _me._ ” 

Eridan lets Sollux’s bulges begin to twist against the webbing between his fingers. “Maybe I will.”

“I _fucking_ hope so.”

Sollux spreads Eridan’s nook lips apart with his thumbs and licks flatly between them, and he and Eridan shudder at the same time. 

At the first taste of the saline tang of him on his tongue, Sollux digs his fingertips into Eridan’s hips and holds him in the perfect position to lap up his slickness, a mix of red and blue if they choose to parse it as such. There’s a certain amount of sweat that’s gathered at his inner thighs, where the swimsuit met his tendons, and Sollux kisses at a midpoint between genitalia and more generalized pelvic girdle, tasting the scent of him and sucking at his skin. 

Eridan licks over the sections of Sollux’s bulges that are exposed as they curl around his fingers, glistening with saliva and slurry. The lack of jewelry allows for their free movement, and there’s a dextrous satisfaction in the organic give as they wind over his hand. 

“You’re already engaged in some deep conversation back there.”

Sollux presses an open-mouthed kiss to his slit. “I’m fluent.”

“No kidding.” Eridan settles himself carefully onto Sollux’s tongue without putting any actual weight on him. His bulge curls on itself near Sollux’s chin. “You must use it often to speak so naturally.”

“You have target practice, and I have a target language.” Sollux sucks at the base of Eridan’s bulge, exactly where it unsheathed, then licks upward again to savor the fluid response to his tongue’s flicking. He holds onto Eridan’s hips, as much to enjoy the feel of him in his hands as ensuring he’s consistently landing where he intends to.

Eridan lets out a sigh and lets his eyes fall shut. “What’s this translate to?”

Before Sollux can ask, Eridan closes his fingers around the slippery length of his bulges as they weave through his fingers and over the webbing. He lowers his mouth to his knuckles, where the tips are held in place, and sucks one of them back between his lips.

Sollux shifts his hips in response, thighs spread widely, and drags his tongue over Eridan’s nook. They’re similar enough in height that the angle is accessible, even convenient. He lets his head sink back against the pillow and eases Eridan’s hips down with him, chin tilted up and increasingly coated in violet as it drips down from Eridan’s bulge.

Eridan lowers himself down to ease his chest against Sollux’s stomach. He keeps his weight in his knees and one elbow to the bed, and runs his free right hand along the underside of Sollux’s thigh, rolls Sollux’s bulges around on his tongue as he switches between them. When he gets a good look at the results of his handiwork, for a quick glance of focused vision, there’s gold coursing down between Sollux’s legs and staining the sheets at a rumpled spot in the center of all four symbols.

He follows it with a fingertip, reached around beneath his thigh, black-painted claws a stark contrast against the flushed yellow as he strokes some of his slickness back up his nook lips.

Sollux pulls his head back briefly to breathe, and catches the scent of Eridan’s slurry on his mouth as he inhales. He runs his hands up Eridan’s sides and rubs at his grubscars. 

Eridan’s tongue flutters against both bulges in tandem, and Sollux’s knees shake harder the more he applies direct attention to the tips. 

“Oh my god, Eridan, I want to fuck you so bad.” He pushes down against Eridan’s hand on his nook, then lifts his hips towards his mouth, in less than graceful movements. “I just want to fuck you, I just—”

Eridan pulls off with a wet slide of his lips over the surface of both bulges. “Might wanna sit down, ‘cause I don’t know how to tell you this, but we’re having sex _right now_.”

Sollux laughs and lightly swats his ass before raising his head and diving back in. He makes appreciative sounds as he returns to lapping at the underside of Eridan’s bulge, at the junction of his nook and his sheath, with his fingers stroking along his thighs.

Eridan lets Sollux’s bulges tangle around his fingers and gently guides them to the side to make way for him lowering his mouth to the same equivalent spot Sollux is sucking, with two bulges to lick beneath instead of one. He holds Sollux’s thigh with his right arm, curled around it to dip his fingertips into the wetness at his nook and slide along his slit. With his eyes closed again, he relaxes against Sollux’s mouth and makes a conscious effort to let down what he perceives as any mental barriers he’s put up, all released with a gradual exhale, like removing floodgates.

Behind and beneath him, Sollux is caught in the sudden influx of direct insight into the sensations he’s providing, the recipient of psychic feedback reinforcing the ways he’s pleasuring him, aware of the pressure of his forked tongue as felt from both sides of their exchange. He feels himself get slicker against the quick movements of Eridan’s fingertips, dripping down over his skin and onto the sheets, eager to lick up each instance of material that flows onto his tongue.

Eridan coaxes his bulges back towards his mouth and sucks both tips back between his lips, amplifying the intensity, his fingers still at work at the entrance of Sollux’s nook. He reflects every precise nuance of enjoyment he’s receiving back to him with whatever improved parts of his brain have permitted the possibility.

Sollux licks at him, feverish, completely taken with him, each touch of his own tongue instantaneously transferred to him to experience vicariously. He digs his heels into the bed, his socks undercutting any traction he’d have on the sheets, legs spread wide for Eridan to easily explore him.

With Eridan fingering him and sucking him down, Sollux thrusts his tongue against him until his jaw is tired. He picks up his own slack with a buzzing point of psionic vibration seated just inside Eridan’s nook, strong enough to feel it in his face.

Sollux feels him get wetter in two ways, on his tongue and in his mind, and Eridan loses his balance and drops down to push Sollux’s bottom lip into his teeth.

“Ow.”

The psionics stop and so does Sollux in general, turning his head to free himself from the sudden discomfort.

“Shit, sorry.” Eridan rolls off him and lies face up on the bed, gills flaring at his throat and his torso, his own genetic material now contributing to the multitude of stains soaking into the sheets. 

“It’s okay.” Sollux runs his hand along Eridan’s shin reassuringly. “We should do that way more often.”

Eridan pushes his hair back, although it doesn’t seem to be much use. “You were definitely speaking my language, there.”

Sollux scratches his fingertips at Eridan’s leg, not quite ticklish. “Glossolalia?”

Eridan snorts, smiling as he’s backwards on the bed, exhausted. “Obscure joke motherfucker.”

“I could feel you feeling me.” Sollux pets Eridan’s knee, eager to keep his hands on him, to keep close. “That was way hot.”

“Huh. Glad it worked.” Eridan reaches for Sollux’s hand and takes it into his own. “Guess the psychic mood ring’s good for something after all.”

“Mmhm.”

“Did you still want to do your, uh. Your thing? Your big idea.” 

“Yeah.” Sollux squeezes his hand. “If we can ever regain the ability to move.”

“Would that we were so lucky.”

“Mm, so. Personal question.” Sollux rolls over onto his side, his bulges still coiling between his legs, and rests his cheek against Eridan’s calf. “Did you ever have a nookworm?”

Eridan strokes his fingertips along Sollux’s hip. “Yeah. Did you?”

“No. Couldn’t afford one.”

Eridan frowns. “How’d you get off, then?”

Sollux holds up his fingers, wiggles them, and then sends a psionic wave along the length of Eridan’s bulge and the entrance of his nook.

Eridan shivers. “Point taken.”

“Taken right up the nook.”

Eridan laughs.

“So I still don’t want to use any of this for anything that’s alive,” Sollux explains, his hand stroking along Eridan’s thigh as he loosely hugs his leg. “But I figured out what game assets to combine to make what we needed.”

Eridan rubs his thumb into Sollux’s grubscar at his hip. “And what were those?”

“Some kind of human vibrator and a copy of The Alternian Field Guide to Domesticated Symbionts.”

Eridan tilts his head back on the bed until his horns touch the mattress, laughing harder. “Even when there’s no fucking internet you still manage to find literally anything.”

“ _That_ one was already on my hard drive, from before the game, but I had to redownload it anyway.” He kisses Eridan’s shin. “I only memorized the good parts.”

“I hope the good parts are what you used for the bullshit alchemy.”

“Duh.”

“Did you try it out yet?”

Sollux shakes his head, lightly, given his position. “Not yet. I wanted to wait for you to do the test run.”

“So where are they? If we’ve got new toys to play with, let’s see ‘em.” Eridan curves his hand around from Sollux’s hip to his ass, then between his thighs from behind. “I didn’t forget your ‘foreplay’ comment.”

Sollux shifts to raise his thigh to accommodate Eridan’s hand, and sucks in a sharp breath as his bulges move to wrap around his wrist. “There you go. Thing one and thing two.”

Eridan gently flexes his fingers until Sollux’s bulges release him. “Your junk?”

“No, dumbass.” He points to Eridan’s end of the mattress. “There.”

Intrigued, Eridan turns his head to investigate, and reluctantly pulls his hand away from Sollux’s nook so he can sit up and handle the toys instead. There’s a set of two matching artificial nookworms that appear to have been somehow cast in silicone, and Eridan is unsurprised to see that they are red and blue, respectively. Something mechanical is set within the center of them, like a bug in amber, or... some internal mechanism in a bug.

“What’s the thing inside it?” he asks, picking up the blue one to inspect it more closely.

Sollux sits up, too, and crosses his legs. His bulges twine idly against themselves in his lap. “That’s the vibrator.”

Eridan flips it over. “How do you turn it on?”

Sollux blinks and the toy begins buzzing in Eridan’s hands.

Eridan gives him an amused look. “And how do you turn it on if you can’t use telekinesis?”

“Whisper sexy things into its auricular sponge clots.” Sollux shuts it off and shrugs. “I dunno. I _can_ , so I didn’t really worry about it.” 

“I guess I’ll just need your help if I want to use one, then.” Eridan sets it back down on the bed and smiles at Sollux. “I can think of worse predicaments to be in.”

Sollux smiles back, then glances down at the toys. “I was hoping you’d help me use it, actually.”

Eridan grins. It’s rare to see Sollux appearing anything approaching shy. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. I, uh.” He makes a noncommittal, nonspecific gesture and then lets his hands fall to his lap. “I mean, I get it in theory, but if it’s not gonna move in there on its own, it seems like maybe it’d be easier with an assist, at least the first time, you know?”

“Yeah, I’ll help you.” Eridan moves closer to him and lifts his hand to touch his face, gently cupping his cheek. “Look, you’ll get the hang of it real fast. Once you know how to get them in, it’s like riding a two-wheel device. You never forget.”

Sollux lets his eyes close for a half second before shooting Eridan a skeptical glance. “Did you ever actually have a two-wheel device? How many sidewalks were over near your hive?”

Eridan rolls his eyes and runs his fingers up into Sollux’s hair to scratch at his scalp, near two of his horns. “It’s a figure of goddamn speech.”

Sollux snickers. “That’s what I thought.”

Eridan keeps his hand cradling Sollux’s skull and draws him in for another kiss. “You ready?”

Sollux kisses him back, and answers as he turns his head and presses a second kiss into the palm of his hand. “Yes.”

“Okay.” Eridan reconfigures himself to shifts back and angle his legs in a way that’s conducive to insertion. “Let me get mine in and then I’ll help you.”

“Put in your own nookworm first, and then assist others.”

“As much as I hate that you’re butchering an informative PSA that was already terrible, that’s not even a bad piece of advice.” Eridan evaluates the toys and, after a moment of deliberation, picks up the red one and angles it towards his nook. “Watch and learn, Captor.”

“I am absolutely Captor-vated,” Sollux says, and it’s not untrue; he stares openly at the scene as it unfolds.

Eridan holds the silicone nookworm with his right hand and spreads his nook lips apart with two fingers on his left hand. It would be difficult to argue that the toy is truly tapered, but its head is at least slightly narrower than its thorax, and with a minute of focus, patience, and gradual pressure, Eridan guides the whole thing inside himself, save for the hook of its tail end. It’s the failsafe for removing them if they’re real, and a convenient feature if they’re inert and replicated in a situation like a dream bubble.

“Fuck, I missed this.” He takes a deep breath and lets it back out. “I used to do this all the time.”

Sollux grins with teeth, eyeing the slick violet that coats the bright red girth of the toy. “This is a good look, right here.”

Eridan huffs a laugh, his bulge curling in undulating, circular motions between his thighs. “I thought I heard you were an aubergine guy? Why are we back to predictable color schemes?”

“Because I know exactly where I can get _aubergined_ up the nook any night of the perigee.”

“You ready for this to _indigo_ into your nook?”

“Oh, absolutely.” Sollux spreads his legs and leans back to rest his weight on his hands. “I’ll _teal_ you if anything changes.”

“Funny.” Eridan picks up the blue nookworm in one hand and runs his other hand up along Sollux’s leg, from his knee to the junction of his hip and thigh. “Okay, it’s really important that you try to relax, because they don’t look that big when you’re holding them but it’s a different story when they’re inside you.”

“It’s all about perception and expectations, isn’t it?” Sollux asks, rhetorically. “Isn’t everything?”

“Basically, yeah.” Eridan rubs his thumb over the entrance of Sollux’s nook, wet with genetic material from their earlier goings-on. “You probably won’t have trouble getting it in as long as you take it slow, since you’re so worked up already.”

“What makes you think I’m worked up?” Sollux watches Eridan’s hand as he touches him: notably, how each stroke of his fingertips sends lazy rivulets of gold down to the sheets.

“Just call it nooksniffer’s intuition.” He gently guides Sollux’s bulges away with an upturned hand, and brings the head of the toy up against Sollux’s slit to nudge past the lips of his nook. “Deep breaths.”

Instead of supplying another retort, Sollux accepts the instructions and breathes in slowly through his nose, and lets it back out through his mouth. Eridan’s more careful with him than he was with himself, and Sollux is unsure how much of it was Eridan’s past experience making this new occasion somewhat routine for him, or greater concern for Sollux’s discomfort than for his own. 

Eridan holds the toy just behind its head, pinching it to bring in the thoracic legs that, while smooth silicone, are still a potential hindrance to smooth movement when they themselves are not moving to assist the effort. With precise effort, he delicately tugs Sollux’s bulges towards his stomach and holds them there, the motion keeping his nook entrance more open than it would have been otherwise. He pushes it forward, up into his nook to the segment just past its true legs, with all the stubby prolegs still to go.

“You all right?” he asks, glancing up to check Sollux’s expression.

“I’m good.” Sollux nods, eyes half-lidded, and shifts to brace his heels against the bed, the socks still providing little in the way of traction. “You can keep going.”

Eridan gives it another experimental press, then another, then shakes his head. “Not with your legs at that angle, I can’t.”

Sollux allows himself to be pliable and lets Eridan pet along his bulges before releasing them to support the underside of Sollux’s thigh and adjust his leg up. He pushes his knee back against the concave plane of his stomach and holds it there, supporting him with the easy strength of sweeps of shouldering a speargun. Sollux’s weight falls to his elbows and forearms as he leans back, abs tense from the effort of sitting up enough to watch Eridan at work.

The improved positioning allows Eridan to slide more of the toy into Sollux, past the first set of prolegs and the slight indents of spiracles that no longer serve any purpose except as texture against his inner walls.

“You’re doing really well,” Eridan says, his voice low and soothing. He rubs into the muscle of Sollux’s thigh with his thumb, enticed by Sollux’s increasingly ragged breathing despite knowing rationally he needs to calm it. “Breathe slowly. Just relax and draw it up into you.”

“God, it does feel sort of like a bulge.” Sollux clenches around it, and a diminished amount of genetic material seeps out from him. “Is this what the real ones felt like?”

“Mostly. It’s not quite the same, but it’s still good. They were even softer, if you can believe it.” Eridan pushes another segment in as soon as Sollux stops his clenching. “The movement’s totally different. It was like... a rippling sort of feeling, instead of the pulsing we’re gonna get out of these when you turn them back on.” 

Sollux laughs through a shaky breath. “I kind of can’t believe how good it feels.”

“That’s coevolution for you.” Eridan slides his hand down Sollux’s thigh to allow his bulges to seek his fingertips for a moment of slow, stroking stimulation. “There’s a reason this was my favorite way to get off.”

“I’ve waited so long for this, that it took dying to try it out.” 

Sollux follows the focus on his face as Eridan presses the toy in further, his attentive pacing that pushes it in along with the flexing of Sollux’s pelvic floor, the way he evaluates each advance for the right response as the last few sets of prolegs bump past the slickness of his entrance, the low hum of affection that laps against him like waves and breaks in a rush when the final segment slides into place with a gentle press from his thumb, fully filling him.

Eridan looks up again and smiles. “Well? How is it?

Sollux takes another deep breath, takes in everything about him, and sighs softly. “I love you.”

Eridan startles as if he’s been stung, his fins flaring. The shock that resonates from him subsumes all else and then retreats to masquerading as anger. 

He drops Sollux’s leg and sits back. “Now? This is when you tell me?”

Sollux does pity him for the panic, the unease that he’s allowed to allay in these instances, as he’s still welcomed within these places like softer skin beneath scales. “Yeah.”

“When I’m shoving a fake bug into you, that’s when you feel inspired to say this.” Eridan stays seated between Sollux’s legs, eyes cast down to the mattress, at the mess of violet and gold that already streaks the sheets. “That’s when. That’s the moment that’s gonna be... that’s gonna be fuckin’ flashbulb burnt into my brain.”

“It’s intimate.” Sollux stretches his legs out on either side of Eridan, to keep them from cramping. “I’m not a time player, man. I don’t know about picking a perfect moment, but I _do_ mean it.”

Eridan’s sudden stress brings his psychic defenses back up, and Sollux follows after him physically instead, sitting up to hold Eridan’s face with both of his hands. As he moves, the toy repositions within him to the point that it’s almost too much, but he doesn’t let it deter him.

“Eridan, get out of your head.” Sollux brings his forehead against his, runs his fingertips back along his jaw and up his fins as they twitch with his emotional state. “Just be here with me. Just be happy.”

And Eridan in turn lifts his hands to Sollux’s hair to slot against his horns, his pinky and pointer fingers on the outside edges and middle and ring between them. He holds tightly, as if this could ground him, as if it could be the conduit for conveying the meaning he hasn’t had words for, but for which he did once have shared synapses.

At long last he offers a hesitant smile, his cheeks lifting against Sollux’s hands. “This is gonna be what I remember.”

“Only you, dude.” Sollux brushes his hair back from his face, and kisses him. “Only you could be this outraged that someone is telling you he loves you, while you’re having sex.”

“I can think of _maybe_ one other person.” Eridan rubs his thumbs up against Sollux’s frontmost set of horns, and the mental barrier he’s built calms itself enough to reintroduce the comfort and closeness Sollux has grown accustomed to receiving. “But only _you_ would drop a bombshell like that while getting fingered by a fapping accessory.”

“Yep. That’s me.”

Sollux laughs, and Eridan laughs along with him, and Sollux starts laughing so hard he entirely abandons sitting up and flops himself back down onto the pillow instead.

With the nookworm just barely sticking out of Sollux, with his hair sticking to his forehead and the tangled sheets sticking to the sweat on the backs of his knees, and all of everything a clustered disaster of a scene, Eridan follows him and lies down beside him, his head next to his on the pillow.

Eridan kisses the tip of his nose and pulls back slightly to meet his eyes, with barely any distance between them. “I love you too, you insufferable prick.”

“Sweet.” Sollux hooks his right leg over Eridan’s hip and runs his right hand up along his back, to rest at his shoulder blade. “Let’s fucking bang each other to celebrate.”

The first touch of Eridan's bulge to his is always a relief, a slick grip tangled around one or both of them, twining between them. Sollux keeps his hips close and parts his lips to kiss Eridan, exhaling against his mouth as he switches on the vibration for both of them.

“Oh, fuck.” Sollux looks at him, his eyes nearly closed, attention fixed on Eridan's expression. “I won't last like this.” 

“You don't have to.” Eridan runs his hand down Sollux's back to settle on his hip, to circle at his grubscar. “You can come as soon as you want.”

There’s a unhurried glide to their movements as they gravitate towards each other, as Eridan’s telepathic ticker-tape transmits pieces of the most personal data anyone could receive. Sollux opens his mouth to him, lets his forked tongue touch to Eridan’s, his licking as languid as the slow sliding of their bulges over each other. The moment is syrupy-slow, like being unable to pick up speed in a dream, like some hazy runtime error. His body never moves as fast as he’s thinking, but for once he wants it this way, strung out like saltwater taffy, sensing every pulse of pleasure pinged back twofold.

“I know you know how I feel,” Eridan says, lips wet with Sollux’s spit. “How are you feeling?”

“I just feel _warm_.” Sollux runs his hand up to pet through the hair at the nape of Eridan’s neck, shifts his hips to support his bulges as they twine around Eridan’s, as they seek out the surface area that’s streaked with ample violet. His stomach is in knots, nautical or otherwise. “Like I just came out of a garment tumbler.”

“No fuckin’ shit.” Eridan traces his fingertips up Sollux’s side, giving equal attention to his central scar at his ribs and then the first at his underarm. “Holding you is like cuddling a power brick.”

“I love being compared to technology.” 

“I love that I know that’s not even sarcasm.”

Sollux smiles at him. 

Eridan kisses him, licks his bottom lip, and runs his hands back down his back to grab his ass and help heft him closer to his hips, to stroke from his ass to his thigh as his leg locks around his back. The silicone keeps them both spread open and dripping around the toys, less so than usual with the girth of them blocking the exit of the progressive build of their genetic material. The steady pulsing vibration has them leaking anyway, wet between their thighs, and Sollux squeezes his leg around Eridan’s waist, traces his fingers over his grubscars and gills.

“You feel so fucking good.” Sollux pushes against him with a shallow roll of his hips, and he lets out a shaky breath through his teeth. “You feel _so_ fucking good, I want to come so badly but I want to make it last.”

“Anything we do, we can do twice, or as many times as we want.” Eridan kisses his cheek. “I want you to come when you feel like it.”

Sollux turns his head just enough to catch Eridan’s mouth with his, and darts his tongue against his lower lip. “I’ve been feeling like it since you were sucking me off.”

“How’s this all feel?” Eridan trades him and takes his lip between his teeth, sea dweller sharp but using exacting caution, and floods him with the borrowed sensation of how Sollux’s bulges feel on the other end, as they lace around Eridan’s, twisting and tensing around his bulge and testing between his legs for a space that’s already occupied. 

It’s then that Sollux starts moaning, in short, clipped bursts that go directly to Eridan’s gut and lodge there, tugging at the spaces within his ribcage. He kisses Sollux’s jawline, down to his neck, and speaks against his skin with his arms wound around him to keep him close.

“All these little sounds you make,” he says, throat tight. “Hearing you like this _does_ things to me, Sol.”

Sollux moves his hand back up to steady himself with Eridan’s shoulder and clings to him as his bulges move more quickly, seeking release increasingly of their own accord. He lets his eyes close and lets Eridan move his mouth on his, the shallow teasing of his tongue a sudden contrast compared to the lazy ways that their bulges and their tongues were both moving before. 

“Oh, _fuck._ ” He breaks the kissing to pant against him, in a frantic return to his earlier begging. “Oh fuck, Eridan, fuck me, _fuck_ me, fuck me, I just want to come on your bulge, I want to come so hard.” 

“You’re so fuckin’ hot, just listen to you.” Eridan drops his mouth to his shoulder, then to his collarbone, turning them until he’s partially on top of Sollux, a welcomed weight. “You’re already full and you still want me in you.”

“Eridan, I can’t,” Sollux gasps, clenching around the soft and satisfying thickness of the nookworm, speeding up its vibrations with his psionics. His bulges tighten their grip on Eridan’s as his stomach goes taut, as his toes curl in his socks, as he shoves his hips towards Eridan’s bone sheath. “Oh _fuck_ , Eridan, I’m coming and I can’t stop.”

Eridan grasps Sollux’s upper arm, then his chest, his fingertips pressed to a grubscar and his thumb running over his sternum as he mouths at his shoulder. 

Sollux tilts his head back, horns driven against the pillow, and shivers through a stream of cursing, as his orgasm pulses between his thighs, teeth bared, desperate for air.

[ ](https://k.nickpic.host/BP0i2O.jpg)

“You’re so fuckin’ hot, Sol, you’re so fuckin’...” Eridan keeps his forehead against his chest, himself struggling to maintain any scrap of composure with Sollux’s bulges winding around his, slick with mingled gold and violet. “Goddamn.”

“Oh my god.” Sollux takes a deep, rasping inhale and brings both hands up to hold Eridan’s head against his shoulder, petting him to stay tied to some specific sensation, of the texture of his hair against his fingers. “Fuck.”

Eridan sighs, eyes closed, just breathing.

“Don’t stop, don’t stop.” Sollux switches what are evidently the settings for the vibrations into something that builds and pulses and peters out and repeats, more erratically than the original constant buzzing. “Get behind me. Get on top of me, I want you to come just as hard.”

“Tough to turn down an invitation like that.” Eridan lifts himself onto his wrists and gives Sollux room to roll over beneath him. “You and your bright ideas.”

Sollux holds his weight up on his hands, supported by his psionics when he’s trembling too much to do it by virtue of muscle strength alone. He looks back over his left shoulder, his bulges drawn down with gravity and waving between his legs, everything about him waiting for Eridan to make a move. “Here’s another genius idea: fuck my ass.”

Eridan holds his hip and tugs him back against his body, holds his neck to gently keep his head turned, enough to close his eyes and lean in to kiss him.

Sollux raises his hand to rake through Eridan’s hair, and kisses back hard, pursuing pressure as their mouths meet.

[ ](https://k.nickpic.host/BP0ILM.png)

Eridan breaks the kiss only to hold Sollux’s hips with both hands, to run his fingertips over his grubscars and pull him back against his bulge. The toys are tremendously difficult to ignore, and the agitation of the internal mechanisms are audible, despite being encased within silicone within their nooks.

As soon as Sollux returns to resting his weight against the bed, Eridan drapes himself over his back, settled against the sharp jut of his shoulder blades, the curve of his spine, the slender straight shape of his ribs to hips, inviting enough for him to wrap his arms around that he does so without a second thought. His bulge teases between Sollux’s legs, seeking anything that will yield sensation, whether it’s the soft hook of the nookworm that stays positioned between the lips of his nook or the tight slide between Sollux’s ass cheeks, where the bulk of the toy makes it too tough to slip anything else inside him.

“I don’t think I can,” Eridan says, speaking softly against the sweat on Sollux’s skin. “Worm’s taking up all the space.”

“Fuck my thighs, then,” Sollux offers, pragmatic and utterly unconcerned with whether the suggestion seems shameless. “Just fuck something.”

Eridan exhales as his bulge finds its way back to entwining with Sollux’s, the length of him laid beneath the oscillating intensity of the toy as it barely emerges from within Sollux’s nook, as it shakes his dripping slickness over their skin. He can feel his own wetness against his inner thighs, and he pulls back to hold his weight in his legs, his adductors apt for the task after sweeps of oceanic horseback riding. 

Sollux pushes his forehead down into the pillow and snaps his legs shut, too slim not to have a thigh gap but doing everything in his power to minimize it and assist in applying pressure to Eridan’s bulge. Eridan slips against him, rocking his hips to accentuate the intense interaction of all these moving parts, of the wet push of his bulge over the silicone that’s already parted Sollux’s nook lips, of every gratifying tangle of Sollux’s dual bulges with his, coating him with gold as they glide together.

There’s less specific invocation or entreaty this time, with so much communication reserved for the nonverbal. Sollux exhales into the pillow until the cloth is damp with his breath, his claws digging into the sheets, his body angled to allow the nookworm deep access as he ratchets up the speed of its pulsing to a level so fervent that his nook lips itch from overstimulation. 

Eridan spreads his webbed fingers over Sollux’s hips and presses his fingertips into his grubscars, watches Sollux’s eyelashes flutter in response as he turns his head on the pillow. The toy can’t prevent all of his genetic material from hitting his thighs, and he’s well aware of the violet running down along his skin.

Sollux sinks further, fangs visible as he fights for air. Eridan braces one bare foot against the bed for extra leverage as he thrusts in a way that he’s seen in otherworldly pailvids that involved very few actual pails, his hamstrings taut, gills flaring open at his throat, hair sticking to his face with sweat.

To add to the taboo, Sollux does the unthinkable, and reaches a hand between the two of them to hold all three of their bulges in one sweat-slicked grip, the edge of his fist hitting the tail end of the worm as it buzzes between his legs.

Eridan feels his orgasm approaching as Sollux’s fingers work him over, gripping and stroking and squeezing him alongside himself, and he watches the way the muscles of Sollux’s back move with every jerking motion of his arm, the way he pushes his face into the pillow and gasps for breath. 

“Come for me,” Eridan urges, into it, blinking away sweat. “Come twice.” 

Sollux catches the tips of their bulges between his fingers and plays with them, fondling them quickly together, and the next noise to leave his throat is no longer anything resembling coherent speech and instead descends into a desperate chittering, each vocalization leaving him the instant he captures any air to use for the attempt.

The nookworms vibrate so hard within the two of them that between the insistent pulsing and the precise manipulation of Sollux’s fingertips, Eridan flicks his fins down and cries out in one long, drawn-out sound, his nook convulsing around the thickness of the toy, abs tight and thighs even tighter, thrusting himself towards Sollux’s slick grip. 

He pushes his thumb against Sollux’s grubscar at his hip, still in the throes of his climax when Sollux starts shuddering, the chittering flowing continuously from him like the gold fluid that seeps from his nook, out around the nookworm. Sollux pushes his ass back against Eridan, keeps his hand holding them tightly together, and shivers through another thirty seconds of his nook contracting around his own nookworm before he lowers the vibration to something more delicate and eventually shuts it off entirely, while leaving it lodged within him.

To his credit, Eridan stays upright long enough to let Sollux get his head into a comfortable position, before he collapses on top of him, their bulges still tangling between their bodies.

Eridan kisses the back of Sollux’s neck, at his razored-short hair, and imagines he’s sending their shared sentiments directly through the spot where his lips meet his skin.

“ _This_ right here,” he murmurs, breathless, his hand lowered to lightly smack Sollux’s hip, “is a rock solid piece of ass tied to my dock.”

“This piece of ass isn’t done with you.” Sollux breathes as deeply as he can with Eridan’s weight atop him, pressing his ribs to the mattress in a way that’s satisfying on levels he’s only just begun to explore. “As if I’m the only one who’s a fan of things that come in twos, _Dualscar_.”

Eridan laughs and presses a kiss to Sollux’s ear. “Come again?”

Sollux smiles against the pillow and tilts his head to allow Eridan to keep kissing his ear, his neck, his shoulder. “How well do you remember your nookworm usage?”

“Very, very well.” Eridan rolls off him and lies beside him again, immediately missing the loss of twined touching amongst their bulges. “If I could’ve stayed in my hive all night and day self-pailing with it, I would’ve done so.”

“Implying that’s not exactly what you did.”

Eridan rolls his eyes, but there’s too much of a flush at his cheeks and the beginnings of a grin for him to deny the statement outright, and he doesn’t. “Maybe.”

“Eheheh.” Sollux strokes a hand along Eridan’s side, over his gills, and rests his palm on his waist. “Okay, tell me when.”

“When what?”

Sollux starts to grin at him, then bites his lower lip to contain it.

The vibrations pick back up, a steady buzz that has Eridan’s awareness floating back scraps of satisfaction as Sollux waits to catch them. He watches Eridan’s face closely for his reaction while he keeps his hand at his hip, steadying him, and meets his gaze directly.

The nookworm moves within him.

Eridan’s eyes go wide before he shuts them tightly, lips parted around a groan that begins in his chest and bubbles up through his throat. “Ohhh my _god_.”

“Got it in one? How’s that for _fin_ esse.” Sollux leaves his own nookworm in place but without any vibration, to keep his psionics focused on Eridan’s pleasure, to see him through this second round. “It’s not exactly on theme, but hey, not bad.”

“How the fuck?” Eridan’s claws curl at his toes, his fins flicking in the air and against the pillowcase respectively, as he presses his thighs together. “You said you never had one but this is _just_ what it felt like.”

“I’m a spectacularly good guesser.” Sollux rubs his thumb at Eridan’s grubscar, grinning fully at the rapid rise and fall of Eridan’s chest. “You should’ve seen how great I was at bullshitting my way through mandatory schoolfeed assessments.” 

Eridan pushes his cheek into the pillow, as the nookworm goes through a walk cycle inside his nook, as if his inner walls were a treadmill. “It’s exactly how it felt, I don’t... I don’t know how you—”

Sollux leans over him, kisses his temple, and tastes sweat on his skin and in his hair. “Inference is my bitch.”

“I haven’t felt this in _sweeps_.” He lifts his head towards Sollux’s attention and accepts however many additional quick kisses he’ll give him, which is several more. “I’ve fuckin’ wanted to feel this again so much, for so long.”

“So touch yourself, like you used to.”

Eridan shivers as the silicone prolegs press against him, slick with his slurry, every bit of the movement choreographed by Sollux’s skill in steering it. “You want to watch me masturbate?”

“Yes.” Sollux smooths his bangs away from his face, where they’ve stuck to his skin, combing his hair away with his fingertips and claws. “If you’ll let me.”

Eridan rolls onto his back and reaches down to press the nookworm into himself with his left hand, his black claws lifted carefully away from the bright red silicone, his grey skin smeared with violet and fainter hints of gold. He digs his heels into the mattress to help raise his hips off the bed, and strokes his right hand down his bulge, angled down along his stomach to drag a wet stripe over his abs, as his gills flutter between his ribs. 

Sollux ramps up the rippling movements of the nookworm and stares at it as its soft silicone hook becomes all that’s visible, as he moves it deeper into his nook. He keeps petting his hair, brushing it back in line with his horns. “Here’s a maritime analogy: you look like a fish someone pulled onboard, trying to breathe on the deck.”

Eridan arches his back and breathes through his mouth, through his throat, through his ribs, with variable success. He lets the tip of his bulge tangle with his fingertips, lets the toy sink further in, lets himself be exposed physically and psychically to Sollux. He shudders and exhales, his horns pushing into the pillow as Sollux attends to him. “You caught me.” 

“Yeah.” Sollux runs his fingertips along Eridan’s horns, then dips one hand around to trace over his right fin, which flutters as he follows the structure of the delicate cartilage. The warmth in him has not subsided, and although the continued presence of the toy is not unhelpful, it’s not the primary source of the feeling. “You’re a keeper.”

“This is all I want.” Eridan turns his head towards Sollux’s hand and presses his cheek against the heel of his palm. “This is it.”

Sollux caresses his face. “All this and a bag of tuber chips.” 

“You make me feel so good.” Eridan turns his head back to center and raises his hips towards his webbed fingers, to stroke his bulge in time with the way the nookworm works inside him. “This feels just like I remember it.”

“That’s because I can sort of remember it, too.” Sollux takes the tip of his fin between his thumb and forefinger and gently worries it. “There’s also honestly only so many ways a worm can move, and you’re so horny at this point you’re gonna agree with my finer methodology on motility.”

“I love hearing you talk,” Eridan sighs, effusive. “I love how you say everything.”

Sollux laughs. “What a dangerous statement. You don’t know what you’re in for when you make a comment like that.”

Eridan switches to using his left hand on his bulge, and reaches over with his right to hold Sollux’s knee. “I do.”

Sollux inhales, then swallows, and keeps himself close, lying beside him and raised up on his left elbow. He brushes Eridan’s jawline with the backs of his claws. “You wanna hear about my favorite way I got off?”

Eridan clenches around the nookworm, tilts his head back to bare his throat, and looks up at Sollux. “Does it involve interactive storytelling?”

“If you want to jizz yourself instantly, sure.”

In response, Eridan sends him a burst of arousal, the gradual escalation begun from the previous plateau and hovering close to another peak. He squeezes Sollux’s knee and meets his eyes while his left hand continues to stroke his bulge. “I want to jizz myself instantly.”

“Mmm.” Sollux brushes Eridan’s hair back and tucks errant strands behind his fin. “In that case, let’s usher in the end times.”

Eridan grins, his face flushed, sharp teeth on display. “Please make a twinArmageddons joke.”

“Boom.” Sollux sends a rush of vibration through the nookworm and lowers himself on the bed to cradle Eridan’s head in his arm, his hand in his hair, his elbow against his collarbone. He kisses his forehead. “Kapow.”

A secondary psionic wave picks up, surrounding Eridan’s bulge with invisible pulsing suction that works just as well even with his hand in place, so that he doesn’t have to sacrifice either sensation. He lifts his hips off the bed, pushing into the tightening grip of his hand as he strokes himself, arching towards a psychic sucking that follows him with the same stimulation regardless of where he moves.

“ _Shit_ , I never fuckin’ would’ve left my hive, not like this.” He speeds up his hand, coating himself with slick violet, clenched tightly around the relentless rippling of the nookworm. “Not for anythin’.”

“For the most part, I didn’t.” 

“How did you figure this out?”

“You know what they say about idle hands.” Sollux kisses Eridan’s forehead again, keeping his lips close to his skin as he speaks. “And once I playtested this enough I didn’t even have to lift a finger.”

Eridan lets out a desperate groan and thrusts upward into the phantom contact, gills flushed at his throat.

“For a while this was my routine, dude. This is what I’d do every night when I woke up and every day before I finally crawled into my recuperacoon. Sometimes in it. Sometimes in the ablution trap. Maybe at my desk. I dunno.” He keeps talking, his voice low but not quite a whisper, breath hot against Eridan’s hair. He finds Eridan’s grubscar at his armpit and presses his thumb into it, rubbing in tight circles. “If you thought I was bad back then, just imagine how obnoxious I’d’ve been if I wasn’t coming all over myself at every opportunity. Not a lot else calmed me down, but at least this was one way I could make myself feel good.”

Eridan braces his heels on the bed, flexing the webbing between his toes, and moves his right hand to join his left so he can keep a tight grip at the base of his bulge, just above his sheath, while his fingertips twist and tease the tip. His nook lips leak violet around the persistent press of the nookworm between them, spreading him open, shaking and squirming.

“Sol,” Eridan starts, guttural, needy.

“Hang on, I’m telling a story.” Sollux continues to touch his grubscar, almost as an afterthought, and with so much of his focus going into the dual psionic movements, there’s barely enough memory left to run the rest of the processes, attention too split to rub Eridan’s stomach and pat his head, although he can manage these things in a rotation. “So now you know what I got up to in this block with all that restless free time. Instead of just sifting through what memories of mine you can conjure up, you get firsthand experience. My favorite jackoff habits and yours, fused together so you can jizz yourself, and I quote, _instantly_.”

Sollux shifts down to kiss Eridan, softly, his tongue touching to his as Eridan opens his mouth to him. Eridan’s hands are busy between his legs, and Sollux ups the suction on his bulge, ups the speed of the vibrator, and drives the nookworm as deep as it can go, until its silicone mouthparts are pushing into his seedflap, in a puppeted replication of slurping up his slurry.

When Eridan’s second orgasm hits him he doesn’t chitter, but he does gasp, with both sets of his gills open uncomfortably to the air, his teeth like razors as he pants his desperation against Sollux’s lips. He keeps his hands gripped around his bulge, his nook contracting around the nookworm and every smooth ridge of its texture, his entire body shivering as Sollux keeps its head moving against his seedflap as he pails another round of genetic material into the confined space. All of it is shared with Sollux, buzzing between their brainstates, and Sollux soaks it up as he tastes Eridan’s tongue.

Eridan rolls over, violet dribbling between his thighs, his left leg outstretched as it seizes and cramps. Sollux shoots a one-off burst of energy to the area, to soothe it away like a spot treatment muscle relaxant. 

“Ah,” breathes Eridan, inarticulate. “Ah, god. Fuck. Holy fuck.”

Sollux returns to petting his hair, pushing his bangs back from his forehead, violet tangling with black. “You’re so pretty.”

Eridan opens his eyes to look at him, completely drained, and lets out a quiet, self-conscious laugh. “You think so?”

“Yeah.” Sollux nods and kisses his cheek. “I like looking at you.”

“I like your face. You have a good face.” Eridan brings a hand to stroke down from Sollux’s ribs to his waist and hip, following the gentle, slight curve of his skeletal structure. “And a good everything.”

Sollux smiles at him. “Thanks.” He shuts off all movement from the nookworm and lets the suction at his bulge fade out to stillness, and continues stroking his hair.

“You’re welcome.” Eridan revels in being held, content to lie like this, forever in this afterglow, if given the option. “You know, just. Anytime.”

They breathe together, gradually regaining normalized control over their lungs as their bulges resheathe and their pulses calm. The single pillow is not quite big enough to accommodate both of their skulls; Sollux puts his hand in a fist and then flexes his fingers outward, and then it is.

Eridan runs his hand back up from Sollux’s waist to touch his face, to run his thumb over his eyebrow as they look at each other for a long, quiet moment.

“You know that story about the wiggler on the beach?” 

Sollux shakes his head, and presses a sideways kiss into Eridan’s palm. “No, how’s it go?”

“So there’s this wiggler on the beach, and he’s throwing all these starfish back into the ocean, one at a time.” Eridan takes a longer section of Sollux’s hair between his fingertips and smooths it out, just in front of his ear. “And a drone shows up, and demands to know what he’s doing.”

Sollux bites back a thousand smart-ass comments and just listens, just lets Eridan play with his hair.

“So the wiggler says, I’m throwin’ ‘em back. The drone says, you are a rustblood, you’ll perish before you can complete this pointless task. The wiggler puts another starfish back in the sea and he says, yeah but it wasn’t pointless to that one.”

There’s a sincerity behind the words that is overwhelming to acknowledge, and Sollux stays silent, transfixed, taking in every word that pours from his mouth.

Eridan looks at him, at the softness of his post-coital expression, of his eyes as he pays close attention. “So what I’m saying is, that... uh. That wiggler, in the anecdote, that’s you.”

Sollux smiles and can’t resist. “Because of my throwing stars?”

Eridan laughs and smiles back. “There’s a lot of people out there you could’ve spent time with. Even other versions of me. So, that... that means a lot to me. What you’ve done, and what you’re doing.” He swallows, and runs his thumb over Sollux’s cheekbone. “That you were willing to give me another chance.”

“Eridan, I would throw you in the ocean right now if I could.”

Eridan laughs harder, and Sollux moves closer to kiss him.

“So what happens?” Sollux asks, still giddy. “What happens in the story?”

“Oh, well. Uh. The drone culls the wiggler for disrupting the biosphere.” He shrugs. “That part kinda ruins the mood.”

Sollux laughs even harder than Eridan, until he’s struggling to catch his breath.

Eridan combs his fingers through Sollux’s short bangs. “I’m glad that even if I can’t move stuff with my mind, the stuff I’ve got to say can at least move you emotionally.”

“I’ve got you covered, dude.” Sollux kisses him quickly. “You know I’d move the stars for you, by throwing them or otherwise.”

“How romantic. Fuckin’ incredible.”

“No, literally. I’m serious.” He points to the window, where it’s covered by bifurcated curtains. “Check it out.”

Eridan’s fins flick and he turns away from Sollux to look back over his shoulder. “What’d you do?”

Sollux shoves him lightly. “Go look!”

On shaky legs Eridan stands up from the bed, and treads barefoot across Sollux’s respiteblock to part the curtains and look outside. His stance is wide and awkward to accommodate the nookworm. Sollux gets up to join him, still in his socks, gold dripping down his inner thighs as he winds his arms around Eridan’s waist.

“Look.”

Eridan scrutinizes the sky, systematically analyzing the horizon, of the multitude of buildings they might explore one day, if they’re feeling like it. “What am I looking at?”

“Wait for it.”

Sollux raises one hand away from holding Eridan to start at the top of his range of motion and quickly gesture downward, as if drawing a shade. The sky rapidly shifts from day to night, and as soon as their eyes adjust, six letters are emblazoned among the rest of the constellations, brightly lit and twinkling with the radiance of each of the stars that comprise their strokes and stems.

Sollux tightens his arms around Eridan’s waist. Eridan brings his hands up to rest over the top of Sollux’s arms, and leans into the embrace.

Eridan attempts to deadpan but his voice comes out more amused than maybe he’d intended. “You’re something else, you know that?”

Sollux snickers and rests his cheek against Eridan’s back, hugging him. “ _Whatever_ am I?”

“You’re somebody who needs a shower, that’s what.”

“Yeah.” He kisses Eridan’s shoulder blade. “True that.”

“Oh shit, what’s happening?” Eridan shouts, pointing out the window. For a split second, Sollux almost believes that something’s wrong. “Wow, the message is changing!”

Eridan gestures with his fingertip, and the central two letters disappear in a rush of sparks that have nothing to do with cosmic gas and everything to do with graphics.

Sollux squints. “‘Do he’?”

Eridan returns his hand to join the other and squeezes Sollux’s arms around him. His next statement is a stage whisper. “Help me out, here.”

“ _Oh._ ”

Sollux rests his chin on Eridan’s shoulder and stares out the window. The penultimate letter flips horizontally, mirrors itself along its vertical axis, and then shaves off a portion of the stroke before bending in the middle to suit its new shape.

Eridan nods, acknowledging the wisdom imparted to them by the skies above. “Perfect.”

Sollux holds his hand out for a low five. “Go team.”

Eridan lets go of him long enough to give him one, and then segues into holding his hand. “We really should shower, though.”

“Yeah, not a bad idea. I’m so covered in fluid it’s like I’m the floor of the brooding caverns.”

Eridan wrinkles his nose. “Gross.”

“That’s why we’re washing up.” Sollux squeezes Eridan’s hand and reluctantly pulls away from him. The nookworm shifts as he steps back, and he makes a face. “God, when I take this thing out it’s gonna be enough to flood a planet.”

“How fortunate for us that we’ve still got a few antediluvian minutes.”

“Pfff.”

Eridan watches Sollux as he walks out of the room, at the slope of his shoulders, at the ease with which he inhabits this space: a place he’d held no hope of returning to when they were lost on LOMAX. There’s gold and violet combined on his thighs, a temporary indication of what they’ve done together, before it’s rinsed away to join the other sentimental snapshots Eridan keeps close when he’s worked himself up worrying.

Sollux’s horns are back around the doorframe before his face is. “I’d ask if you’re coming, but three times just seems debauched.”

“You’re a riot.” He crosses the room and prods Sollux’s upper arm. “Hold your hoofbeasts.”

Eridan follows him the short distance down the hall, amused by the soft steps of his feet in the merchandise from some human game or another. When Sollux immediately sits down on the load gaper, Eridan hangs back and leans against the doorway.

“You need a minute?”

“No, I need help.” Sollux reaches between his legs and tests the tail end of the nookworm. “What’s the best way to get this out without making a mess?”

“There’s gonna be a mess no matter what you do, especially since these weren’t actually doing anything with the slurry besides stopping it up a bit.” He folds his arms over his chest and stays to supervise. “Normally I’d say just use the hook to tug it back out, and kind of push it out while you do that, but psionics might help your case in a way that some of us don’t have the luxury of relying on.”

“I’ll use my mind to tug yours out of your nook, too, if you want. Not any weirder than putting it into you.” Sollux lifts one leg up to brace his foot against the seat of the gaper, but his sock slides right off. “Fuck.”

“Time for those to finally go.” Eridan squats down and helps Sollux take off his socks, one raised foot at a time. He stands back up and tosses the pair out into the hall so they won’t do something stupid like slip on them after showering.

“Can you fucking imagine if a drone saw us like this?” Sollux asks, as he makes another attempt to brace his foot on the seat. He sets his jaw and yanks on the silicone postabdominal spine to dislodge the worm from his nook. Although the toy is soft, it’s still tougher to get it back out now that he’s no longer aroused, even with telekinesis. As soon as he pulls it far enough out of his nook, a rush of gold genetic material spills out and splashes into the gaper, but he’s careful to keep a grip on the toy and prevents it from falling in after the slurry. “Just flushing all that effort down the drain, and fuck the empire.”

“Time to get culled. Cull time is now.” Eridan steps past him to stand in the shower. He rests one foot on the edge of the tub and reaches down between his legs to do the same thing, albeit with a more practiced hand. His slurry hits the tub with wet impact, and what didn’t immediately flood out drips down his legs to ultimately reach the tub floor, anyway. “Looks like someone got fuckin’ murdered in here, actually.”

Sollux puts the blue nookworm on the edge of the ablution trap. “Think we’d have a good enough mix for them to accept it?”

Eridan places the red one beside the blue one. “I dunno, dude. I think adequately adhering to a particular quadrant is a key requirement for filial pails.”

“So we just have to fill multiple buckets of come. Got it.” Sollux shoves the shower curtain halfway closed, takes a minute to relieve himself, and wipes off. He stands up, flushes the gaper with his elbow, and idly wonders where all the plumbing goes in a dream bubble. He glances down at the black streak of resin that still stains the ceramic and frowns. “You know what, I think we’ve spent enough time thinking about that fight. I’m tired of looking at this whenever I come in here.”

“You can get rid of it.” Eridan pokes his head around the curtain and looks at the stain, too. “It’s no filament off my gills.”

Simply by thinking about it a final time, Sollux removes the stain and sets the block back to how it was. With a second thought, he fixes the flooring where it’s been curling with water damage for as long as he can remember. “There. Way better.”

“Totally. Now get in here before you spill so much genetic material on the floor that it starts fucking up again.”

Sollux steps into the shower with Eridan and works his way in front of him. He runs the water and directs it out through the showerhead. “Stay back,” he says, dramatically throwing his arm in front of Eridan’s chest. “It’s too cold. I’ll protect you.”

Eridan snorts. “I’ve been in the bathyal zone, but thanks, that’s very noble of you.”

Sollux skids his toe through the violet slurry on the floor as the water carries it away. “As noble as you?”

Eridan holds Sollux from behind, as Sollux adjusts the water temperature, and as the spray starts to rinse away the violet on his chest. He runs his fingers up along his sternum to assist. “Gold’s a royal color, too.”

“Flatterer.” Sollux turns around and runs his hair under the warmth, and shoves his bangs away from his eyes. “This hive is a meritocracy, and the only thing that will increase your social standing is your ability to advance in Flappy Spleenfowl.”

Eridan pours some body wash into his hands and works it into a lather. “I’ve never played Flappy Spleenfowl.”

Sollux grins at him, soaking wet, with water running down his face. “Then you’d better get good, scrub.”

Eridan paps his chest with a clump of soap bubbles. “I’ll scrub _you_.”

“I invite you to.” Sollux takes an abridged bow and the water runs down through his bangs and in streams to the floor. “Please, sanitize me. I am filthy.”

With a smirk, Eridan splays his hand over Sollux’s chest and wipes the rest of the soap onto him. “Disgusting.”

“Clean-foul.” Sollux takes the lather into his own hands and genuinely washes himself. “Like spleenfowl, but not.”

“That doesn’t even make sense.” Eridan reaches past him to grab the bottle again and pour more into his hand, lightly nudging Sollux with his arm as he does so.

“It doesn’t have to, because I’m tired.” He runs his hand between his legs to clear the genetic material away from the folds of his nook, then lets the water rinse away soap and slickness alike. “Maybe I just want to rhyme things. Maybe in my afterlife I’ve decided to become a slam poet.”

Eridan huffs a laugh, and soaps up his left shoulder with his right hand, while his left hand rests on his ribcage to shield his gills from the suds. “Maybe the angels of double death will stop by and strike me down to spare me from that kind of suffering.”

“Maybe you can broadcast how miserable you are to all of paradox space, and they’ll have mercy on you.” Sollux rinses himself off, then trades spots with Eridan to allow him better access to the water. “Maybe everyone’ll feel so sorry for you that you can convince the universe to be your own personal army.”

Eridan fins flick to attention and he snaps his fingers. “That was it.”

“What was it?”

“There _was_ a guy I remember reading about, ages ago. Can’t think of his name for the life of me.” Eridan lets the water rinse away the soap, then moves his hand to let it rinse his gills once there’s no risk of irritating them. “Violet military commander, right? It was real rare to see someone of his rank with that kind of ability, but whatever he had, they said his troops moved with him like a school of fish. They were so coordinated nobody could believe it.”

Sollux gives him a look but doesn’t say anything.

Eridan tilts his head to let the water flow over his gills on his neck. “What?”

“So it’s like _Pikmin_.”

He tilts his head back and lets the water course through his hair and over his horns. “What the fuck is _Pikmin_?”

“It’s another human videogame.” Sollux grabs one of two towels off the curtain rod and steps back enough from the shower spray to begin drying his hair. “This guy gives instructions to a bunch of these other creatures who are all color-coordinated and have different powers.”

Eridan considers this. “So I’m Pikmin.”

“No, you’re Captain Olimar.”

“Huh.”

“I’ve got it. We can play it later if you want.” Sollux looks at him from beneath the towel, with only part of his face visible through the cloth. “But anyway, please continue.”

“Right, so. The book I had was real old. I got it on one of our campaigns.” He runs his fingers through his hair and scratches at his scalp under the running water. “Wasn’t exactly a primary source. I got the impression that the historical records he wrote, maybe journals or whatever, that all those’d been destroyed hundreds, maybe thousands of sweeps before.”

Sollux ruffles the towel over his head, on either side of his horns and then between them. His hair sticks up, still damp, and he drapes the towel over his shoulders. “Like, censored by the empire, or...?”

“Hard to say. All I know is, from age or redaction, a lot of it was missing by the time it got to me.” Eridan shrugs, and the miniature rivers running down his chest adjust their path accordingly. “Supposedly he was head of the imperial guard and oversaw the longest period of peacetime the planet ever had. If the story got altered, it’d make sense why they wouldn’t want us all to read about other options.”

“ _Peacetime?_ Seriously?”

“Yeah. Shithive maggots, right? Who’d even think.” Eridan runs his fingertips behind his fins and lets the water rinse them. “But it must’ve been boring as fuck, because without anybody to conquer, they had the military do a bunch of infrastructure projects instead. Bridges and transportation and shit, and a giant fuckin’ library filled with military history plus whatever other subject you could possibly imagine. Since he lived a long time, a lot of the texts within it were written by the same guy.”

Sollux takes the towel off to actually dry his arms instead of standing there, slightly chilled. “Those are gone, probably.”

Eridan laughs. “Uh, yeah. Way fucking gone. What I had was some kind of ancient schoolfeed textbook that talked about all this, so it was several degrees of Troll Kevin Bacon removed from the source material. I’m rehashing a few paragraphs of info that was severely outdated by the time I got my hands on it.”

Sollux runs the towel down each of his legs. The spray from the shower only slightly mists his face as he leans down. “Did it say anything else?”

“I don’t think we know much else, really? He answered to the Empress, but so did everyone. Any details about his personal life were lost with those journals and the library itself, and anything that survived after that would’ve been altered or deleted, especially if he was up to something subversive like dating down the hemospectrum, or doing more than _just_ reporting to the Empress.” Eridan tips his head forward and lets the water pour heat over his back and shoulders. “It did mention that he was partially responsible for developing the modern writing system, along with another academic at the institution he founded. His lifespan was long enough to have seen the language evolve, but it took a second set of eyes to crack the code and make it functional, I guess. Supposedly those original texts and the treaties he negotiated were written in kraken ink, but if I had to guess I’d say it was just a regular squid, and the story got warped over the sweeps.”

Sollux wraps the towel around his waist. “Cool story, bro.”

Eridan huffs, and lets the water run over his face, down through his bangs, as a curtain of liquid. “Yeah, well. I thought it was pretty cool when I was a kid, at least.”

Sollux parts the water and his hair with his psionics and steps closer to him, to tip his chin up and kiss him, to meet his eyes through translucent membranes. “It _is_ pretty cool.”

Eridan kisses him back, quickly, and when they part his mouth’s quirked up. “If you liked that, there’re a lot more historical factoids I can serve up and ramble about to you whenever you want them. I had bookshelves full of this stuff.”

“I think we should wash off these toys first while we’re in here, but I’m generally up for that, yeah.” Sollux steps back from him and picks up both nookworms from the side of the ablution trap, and hands the red one back to Eridan. “Here, rinse it off real fast.”

Eridan turns around to switch the water back to the faucet instead of the showerhead so Sollux won’t get soaked again, and bends down to rinse off the genetic material that’s clung to the silicone.

“I could’ve just majyyk’d them clean, in hindsight.” Sollux turns the blue nookworm over in his hands and gets gold on his fingers for his trouble.

Eridan carefully rubs his fingers over the various small details of the toy, ensuring that all the slurry is cleaned out from its crevices. “Sometimes it’s nice to take care of your things by hand.”

“Should I leave the wet spot on the bed, then?”

“Maybe. It’s like Troll Jackson Pollock in there.” Eridan laughs. “Some people might call that art.”

Sollux kneels down as Eridan stands up, and washes off the blue nookworm the same way. “I call it something I don’t want to sleep on, if we are in fact sleeping on the human bed.”

“Did you want to? Your double-sided recuperacoon has worked out pretty well for us being two people again.” Eridan steps out of the shower, unfazed by the relatively cold air hitting the droplets of water that cling to his hair and skin. He looks back and watches Sollux as he works beneath the running water, follows the meticulous movements of his fingertips. “But it makes it tough to hold you.”

“We’re already bucking a bunch of rigidly-enforced societal trends, _and_ we’re dead, so fuck it. Yeah. Let’s sleep in a human bed.” Sollux shuts off the water and stands up. “We could download all those verboten ancient journals and read those to each other _in_ bed, while we’re at it.”

Eridan’s eyebrows shoot up. “Are you serious?” 

“Yeah, dude. Like you said, I can get just about anything.” He grins. “We can probably get all of your books back if you help me search for their data.”

“That would be amazing.” Eridan fiddles with one of the nookworm’s legs. “I don’t even know what to say.”

“You say _thank you_ , you rude asshole.” Sollux makes a show of rolling his eyes. “Learn some fucking manners.”

Eridan _harrumphs_ louder than is necessary and flips him off. “How about you hurry up drying off your sex toy, honey buns?”

“I think you will find that they are no longer honey buns, because I know how to bathe myself, fishcake.” Sollux taps the nookworm against the towel and frowns when a few stray pieces of lint stick to the silicone. He picks them off, then shakes the toy lightly. “Maybe we can just let these air dry.”

“I don’t think it’ll take more than a few minutes.” Eridan runs his free hand back through his hair to press some of the water out of the strands, and holds his own nookworm in the crook of his other arm. “They’ll probably dry off faster than me.”

“Since you’re impervious to temperature changes or whatever the fuck and just walk around wet like that. You’d think you lived in the ocean or something.” Sollux grabs the second towel off the curtain rod and puts it over Eridan’s shoulders like a cape. “So what was that part about cuddling me?”

“If I’m not too _wweh-t_ for you, then yes, that offer is on the table.”

“I said the bed, not the table. For fuck’s sake.” Sollux holds the bathroom door open for Eridan to step through. “You never listen to me.”

Eridan kisses his cheek, over the damp strands of hair that trail past his ear. “Any furniture’s fine by me.”

Content, Sollux leads the way back to their respiteblock. He sets the blue nookworm on his desk and picks up their combined jewelry so he can undo the clasp of the necklace, retrieve his ring, and put it back on his finger. 

Eridan places the red nookworm next to the blue one and glances at Sollux’s left hand. He smiles, even though Sollux isn’t looking.

Sollux props the blue nookworm on top of the red one, and, through a series of careful adjustments and tiny balancing acts, puts Eridan’s necklace over the blue one and the sprite shades on the red one. He glances over his shoulder and beams at Eridan. “Look, they’re friends.”

Eridan shakes his head and can’t stop himself from smiling. “You’re adorable.” 

“But not bloodthirsty?”

Eridan pulls him into a hug. “Not unless you’re a rainbow drinker and never told me.”

Sollux pulls away, laughing. “Fuck, you’re cold _and_ wet. Go roll around on the bed until you dry off.” He glances to the bed, and the sheets are reset to their original laundered state. “With apologies to the lewdseum’s potential collection.”

“What a glubbin’ tragedy that our mixed media piece won’t be hung up alongside all _that_ priceless artwork.” 

Eridan takes off the towel to lie down on the bed, and despite the facetious complaints, Sollux lets his own towel drop to the floor and lies down next to him. He floats the sheets over top of them, and adds a freshly-created set of yellow and green blankets for good measure before curling in beside Eridan and sighing against his chest. “Convenient that magic is real after all, huh?”

Eridan puts his arm around Sollux, warm beneath the covers, and kisses his damp hair. “Let’s just fuck in the tub next time.”

* * *

  
FCG: YOU WANT ~~HER~~ HIM IN EVERY QUADRANT LIKE A DESPERATE FOOL.  



End file.
